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Old Times on the 
Upper Mississippi 







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Old Times on the 
Upper Mississippi 

The Recollections of a Steamboat Pilot 
from 1854 to 1863 

By 
George Byron Merrick 




Cleveland, Ohio 

The Arthur H. Clark Company 

1909 






LlBrtAHY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

NOV 25 1908 

. CopyriKit Entry ^ 
CLASS flL ' XXc No, 

*' copy y. 



Copyright igog 

George Byron Merrick 

All rights reserved 



Dedicated to the Memory of My Chiefs 

William H. Hamilton, Engineer, Charles G. 
Hargus, Clerk, Thomas Burns, Pilot, masters 
in their several professions. From each of 
them I learned something that has made life 
better worth living, the sum of which makes 
possible these reminiscences of a "cub" pilot. 



Contents 




^relude 


13 


Chapter I 




Early Impressions .... 


15 


Chapter II 




Indians, Dugouts, and Wolves 


20 


Chapter III 




On the Levee at Prescott 


29 


Chapter IV 




In the Engine-room 


38 


Chapter V 




The Engineer 


46 


Chapter VI 




The "Mud" Clerk — Comparative Honor 


5 52 


Chapter VII 




Wooding Up .... . 


59 


Chapter VIII 




The Mate 


64 


Chapter IX 




The "Old Man" .... 


71 


Chapter X 




The Pilots and Their Work . 


78 


Chapter XI 




Knowing the River .... 


92 


Chapter XII 




The Art of Steering 


100 


Chapter XIII 




An Initiation ..... 


106 


Chapter XIV 




Early Pilots ..... 


III 


,/ Chapter XV 




Incidents of River Life . 


117 



THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 



Chapter XVI 

Mississippi Menus . 
Chapter XVII 

Bars and Barkeepers 
Chapter XVIII 

Gamblers and Gambling 
Chapter XIX 

Steamboat Racing . 
Chapter XX 

Music and Art 
Chapter XXI 

Steamboat Bonanzas 
Chapter XXII 

Wild-cat Money and Town-sites 
Chapter xxill 

A Pioneer Steamboatman 
Chapter XXIV 

A Versatile Commander; a Wreck . 
Chapter XXV 

A Stray Nobleman .... 
Chapter XXVI 

In War Time ..... 
Chapter XXVII 

At Fort Ridgeley .... 
Chapter XXVIII 

Improving the River . . . , 
Chapter XXIX 

Killing Steamboats . . . . , 
Chapter XXX 

Living It Over Again ... 

Appendix 

A. List of Steamboats on the Upper Mississip 

pi River, 1823-1863 

B. Opening of Navigation at St. Paul, 1844 

1862 

C. Table of Distances from St. Louis 

D. Improvement of the Upper Mississippi 

1866-1876 .... 
Indian Nomenclature and Legends 



E. 



Index 



Illustrations 



Mouth of the Wisconsin River. The ancient high- 
way between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi. 
This scene gives some idea of the multitude of islands 
which diversify both the Wisconsin and the Missis- 
sippi Rivers ...... Frontispiece 

Prescott Levee in 1876. Showing Steamer "Centennial" 
and the little Hastings ferry, "Plough Boy." The dou- 
ble warehouse, showing five windows in the second story 
and four in the third, was the building in which the au- 
thor lived when a boy ..... 32 

Prescott Levee in 1908. But one business building, one 
of the old Merrick warehouses, left intact. Dun- 
bar's Hall gutted by fire recently. The large steamboat 
warehouse next to it destroyed some years ago. All the 
shipping business gone to the railroad, which runs just 
back of the buildings shown .... 32 

Alma, Wisconsin. A typical river town in the fifties 54 

Above Trempealeau, Wisconsin. In the middle fore- 
ground, at the head of the slough, is the site of the winter 
camp of Nicolas Perrot, in the winter of 1684-5, as iden- 
tified in 1888 by Hon. B. F. Heuston and Dr. Reuben 
Gold Thwaites of the Wisconsin State Historical So- 
ciety ........ 68 

Daniel Smith Harris. Steamboat Captain, 1833-1861 82 

Captain Thomas Burns. Pilot on the Upper Missis- 
sippi River from 1856 to 1889. Inspector of Steamboats 
under President Cleveland and President McKinley 82 

Charles G. Hargus. Chief Clerk on the "Royal Arch," 
"Golden State," "Fanny Harris," "Kate Cassell" and 
many other fine steamers on the Upper Mississippi . 82 

George B. Merrick. "Cub" Pilot, 1862 . . 82 

Typical portion of the Upper Mississippi. Map of the 
river between Cassville, Wis., and Guttenberg, Iowa, 



THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 



showing the characteristic winding of the stream . 98 

Steamer "War Eagle," 1852; 296 tons . . . 120 

Steamer "Milwaukee," 1856; 550 tons . . . 120 

Winona, Minnesota. The Levee in 1862 . . 134 

The Levee at St. Paul, 1859. Showing the Steamer 
"Grey Eagle" (1857; 673 tons), Capt. Daniel Smith 
Harris, the fastest and best boat on the Upper River, 
together with the "Jeanette Roberts" (1857; 146 tons), 
and the "Time and Tide" (1853; 131 tons), two Min- 
nesota River boats belonging to Captain Jean Robert, an 
eccentric Frenchman and successful steamboatman. (Re- 
produced from an old negative in possession of Mr. Ed- 
ward Bromley of Minneapolis, Minn.) . . 146 
Steamer "Key City," 1857; 560 tons • • • i54 
Steamer "Northern Light," 1856; 740 tons . . 154 
Facsimiles of Early Tickets and Business Card 166 
McGregor, Iowa. Looking north, up the river . 178 
Alton, Illinois. Looking down the river . facing p. 188 
Red Wing, Minnesota. Showing Barn Bluff in the back- 
ground, with a glimpse of the river on the left . 198 
Bad Axe (now Genoa), Wisconsin. Scene of the last 
battle between the United States forces and the Indians 
under Chief Black Hawk, August 21, 1832. The steam- 
er "Warrior," Captain Joseph Throckmorton, with sol- 
diers and artillery from Fort Crawford, Prairie du 
Chien, took an active and important part in this battle 218 
Reed's Landing, Minnesota. At the foot of Lake Pepin. 
During the ice blockade in the Lake, in the spring of 
each year before the advent of railroads to St. Paul; 
all freight was unloaded at Reed's Landing, hauled 
by team to Wacouta, at the head of the Lake, where it 
was reloaded upon another steamboat for transportation 
to St. Paul and other ports above the Lake . . 236 
Steamer "Mary Morton," 1876; 456 tons. Lying 
at the levee, La Crosse, Wisconsin. (From a negative 

made in 1881.) 244 

Steamer "Arkansas," 1868; 549 tons. With tow of 
four barges, capable of transporting 18,000 sacks — 
36,000 bushels of wheat per trip. The usual manner 
of carrying wheat in the early days, before the river traffic 
was destroyed by railroad competition . . . 244 

Map of the Mississippi between St. Louis and St. 

Paul facing p. 304 



Prelude 

The majesty and glory of the Great River have departed; 
its glamour remains, fresh and undying, in the memories of those 
who, vi^ith mind's eye, still can see it as it was a half-century ago. 
Its majesty was apparent in the mighty flood which then flowed 
throughout the season, scarcely diminished by the summer heat; 
its glory, in the great commerce which floated upon its bosom, 
the beginnings of mighty commonwealths yet to be. Its glamour 
is that indefinable witchery with which memory clothes the com- 
monplace of long ago, transfiguring the labors, cares, responsi- 
bilities, and dangers of steamboat life as it really was, into a 
Midsummer Night's Dream of care-free, exhilarating experiences, 
and glorified achievement. 

Of the river itself it may be said, that like the wild tribes 
which peopled its banks sixty years ago, civilization has been its 
undoing. The primeval forests which spread for hundreds of 
miles on either side, then caught and held the melting snows and 
falling rains of spring within spongy mosses which carpeted the 
earth ; slowly, throughout the summer, were distilled the waters 
from myriad springs, and these, filling brooks and smaller rivers, 
feeders of the Great River, maintained a mighty volume of water 
the season through. Upon the disappearance of the forests, the 
melting snows and early rains having no holding grounds, are 
carried quickly to the river, which as quickly rises to an abnormal 
stage in the early part of the season, to be followed by a dearth 
which later reduces the Mississippi to the dimensions of a second- 
rate stream, whereon navigation is impossible for great steamers, 
and arduous, disheartening and unprofitable for boats of any class. 

To most men of our day, the life of those who manned the 
steamers of that once mighty fleet is legendary, almost mythical. 



THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 



Its story is unwritten. To the few participants who yet remain, 
it is but a memory. The boats themselves have disappeared, 
leaving no token. The masters and the mates, the pilots and 
the clerks, the engineers and the men of humbler station have 
likewise gone. Of the thousands who contributed to give life 
and direction to the vessels themselves, a meager score of short 
biographies is all that history vouchsafes. 

The aim of the present volume is to tell something of these 
men, and of the boats that they made sentient by their knowledge 
and power; to relate something of the incidents of river life as 
seen by a boy during eight years of residence by the riverside, 
or in active service on the river itself. While it may not literally 
be claimed, "All of which I saw," it is with satisfaction, not 
unmixed with pride, that the writer can truthfully assert, "A part 
of which I was." 

G. B. M. 



The several quotations from "Mark Twain" which herein 
appear are from Life on the Mississippi (copyright, 1903), by 
Samuel L. Clemens, permission for the use of which is kindly 
granted for the present purpose by the publishers, Messrs. Harper 
& Brothers, New York. 



Chapter I 

Early Impressions 

Descent from an ancestry whose members built and sailed 
ships from Salem, Newburyport, and Nantucket two hundred 
years ago, and even down to the early days of the nineteenth 
century, ought to give an hereditary bias toward a sailor's life, on 
waters either salt or fresh. A score-and-a-half of men of my 
name have "died with their boots on" at sea, from the port of 
Nantucket alone. They went for whales, and the whales got 
them. Perhaps their fate should have discouraged the sea-going 
instinct, but perversely it had the opposite effect. A hundred 
men are lost out of Gloucester every year, yet their boys are on 
the "Banks" before they are fairly weaned. 

I was born at Niles, Michigan, on the historic St. Joseph 
River, which in those days was of considerable importance com- 
mercially. Scores of keel boats plied between South Bend and 
the mouth of the river at St. Joseph, on Lake Michigan. Keel 
boats drifted down the river, and after unloading were towed 
back by little steamboats, about eighty feet long by eighteen feet 
beam. These were propelled by side wheels attached to a single 
shaft, driven by a horizontal engine of indifferent power. These 
steamers towed four "keels" upstream at the rate of five or six 
miles an hour. The former had no upper cabin answering to 
the "boiler deck" of the Mississippi River boats — only a roof 
covering the main deck, with the passenger cabin aft, and the 
quarters of the crew forward of the boiler and engine. 

It was, I suppose, a quarter of a mile from my birthplace 
to the river bank where we boys of the neighborhood went to 



i6 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

see the steamboats pass. In the opposite direction, around a sharp 
bend and across the low-lying, alluvial land, which comprised the 
home farm, the river was discernible a mile away. When a boat 
was seen coming up river, the alarm was given, and we little 
shavers of the neighborhood raced for the nearest point of view, 
a high bank of blue clay, rising probably seventy-five feet above 
the river. We used to think it was as many hundreds of feet; 
and what I now know as the quarter mile, then stretched away 
into interminable distances as it was measured by the stubby yet 
sturdy little legs of six-year-old runners. On the edge of this 
blue-clay bank, I received my first impressions in river piloting. 

My teacher in these matters was a man whom I greatly 
envied. Kimball Lyon lived in a house three times as large as 
that in which I was born. His father had left a big farm and a 
bank account of fabulous dimensions. We knew it was large, 
because "Kim" never worked as other young men of twenty-five 
or thirty years did in those days. His mother always kept a "hired 
man", while Kim toiled not; but he spun. 

It was not his riches, however, nor his immunity from toil, 
that common lot of other men, which excited the envy of the 
six-year-olds. He could, and did, play on the accordion. Lying 
on his back in the shade and resting one corner of his instrument 
upon his bosom, with irresistible power and pathos he sang and 
played 

"A life on the ocean wave, 
A home on the rolling deep." 

It appealed to all the natural impulses of our being, and 
the dormant instincts inherited from generations of whale-hunting 
ancestors were aroused by the power of music, reinforced by the 
suggestive words of the song itself; and then and there we vowed 
that when we were men like Kimball Lyon, we too would own 
and play upon accordions, and do all else that he had done; for 
ma'-velous tales he told, of his experiences in great storms at 
sea and of deeds of aquatic prowess. We learned in after years 
that "Kim" once sailed from St. Joseph to Chicago in a sawed-of5 
lumber hooker, when the wind was west nor'west, down the lake, 
and that he did actually lie on the deck, but not on his back, 
and that it was not music which he emitted, and that the sailors 
railed at him, and that he came back from Chicago by stage coach 



EARLY IMPRESSIONS 17 

to Niks. But we didn't know this when he was awakening 
our viking instincts, as we lay on the banks of the old St. Joe 
in the sunny summer days of long ago. 

"Kim" Lyon knew all about steamboats, as well as about 
deep sea ships, and when we asked questions he could answer 
out of the fullness of his knowledge. We wondered what made 
the wheels go 'round, and he told us. I have forgotten what 
made them go 'round, but my recollection is that it was a peculiar 
mechanical process of which I have never seen the like in any 
other service on river, lake or ocean. His answer to the query 
as to "what is the man in the little house on top of the boat 
doing?" I have never forgotten, as it afterward came more in 
my line of business. The man was twisting the wheel as all 
pilots before and since that time twist it, a spoke or two to 
port, a half dozen to starboard, hard up and hard down, there 
being a shallow piece of river just there, beset with big boulders 
and reefs of gravel, through which he was cautiously worming 
his boat and its kite-tail of keels. 

"That man", said Kimball, "is drawing water from a well 
in the bottom of the boat and emptying it into the boiler, just 
as your father draws water from his well with a rope, a bucket 
and a crank. If he should stop for a minute the boiler would 
burst for want of water, the boat would blow up, and we should 
all be killed by the explosion." 

This definition at once gave us a personal interest in the 
work of the man at the wheel; we all felt that our lives depended 
upon this man's devotion to his duty. Had he struck a piece of 
"easy water" at that time, and centred his wheel, there is no 
doubt that we would have scurried for home before the inevitable 
explosion should occur. That was my first lesson in piloting. 
Perhaps this childish concern that the man "drawing water for the 
boilers" should faithfully perform his duty, was but a prefigure- 
ment of the interest with which the writer, and hundreds of 
others, in later years, have watched the pilot work his boat 
through a tangled piece of river, knowing that the safety of all 
depended upon the knowledge and faithfulness of the "man at 
the wheel." 

The steamboats plying on the St. Joe were crude little 
affairs, and there were but four or five of them, all alike. I 



i8 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

remember the name of but one, the "Algoma" ; the others are 
quite forgotten. Doubtless they were commonplace, and did not 
appeal to the poetic side of the boy. But "Algoma" ! The word 
has a rythmical measure, and conjures up visions of wigvvams, 
council fires, dusky maidens, and painted braves. An Indian 
name would stick when all the saints in the calendar were for- 
gotten. The "Algoma" and her consorts have gone the way of 
all steamboats. The railroad came and killed their business, just 
as a few years later, it did on the Great River. 

A few years later I saw the Mississippi River for the first 
time, at Rock Island, Illinois ; and through the kindness of another 
well-posted bystander to whom the then twelve-year-old boy 
appealed, I received my first impressions of a stern- wheel boat. 
There were two steamboats lying at the levee — the "Minnesota 
Belle", a side-wheeler, upon which we had taken passage, while 
just above lay the "Luella", a stern-wheeler. I knew about the 
former variety from observation on the St. Joe, but I had never 
seen even a picture of one of the latter sort, so it was a novelty. 
I wasn't certain that it was a steamboat at all, and after referring 
the matter to my stranger friend, I learned definitely that it 
wasn't. The "Luella's" wheel was slowly turning over as she 
lay at the levee, and as I did not comprehend the mechanical 
details of that kind of craft I began asking questions. My mentor 
assured me that the "Luella" was not a steamboat at all, but a 
water power sawmill. The big wheel then moving was driven 
by the current, and it in turn operated the sawmill machinery 
on the inside of the boat. As I could not figure any other use 
for a wheel out in the open, at the end of the boat, instead of 
on the side where it ought to be, and as I had no reason to doubt 
the statement of my informant, I readily accepted the sawmill 
explanation, and hastened to confide my newly-acquired knowledge 
to my brother and other members of the family. A few hours 
later both boats pulled out for St. Paul. After she had rounded 
the first point, ahead of us, we saw nothing more of the "Luella" 
until we met her coming down the river on her return trip. 
She was a heavily-powered boat, and showed her heels to the 
larger and slower "Minnesota Belle". The sight of the "Luella" 
kicking her way upstream at the rate of two miles to our one, 
not only dissipated the sawmill impression, but taught me not to 



EARLY IMPRESSIONS 19 

accept at face value all information communicated by glib-tongued 
and plausible strangers. 

That steamboat trip from Rock Island to Prescott was one 
long holiday excursion for us two small and lively boys from 
Michigan. There was so much to see and in so many different 
directions at once, that it was impossible to grasp it all, although 
we scampered over the deck to get differing view points. We 
met dozens of boats, going back to St. Louis or Galena after 
further loads of immigrants and freight; and there were other 
boats which came up behind us, gaining slowly but surely, and 
finally passing the deeply-laden "Belle". There were landings 
to be made, and freight and passengers to be disembarked. There 
were strange Indians to be seen — we were familiar enough with 
Michigan tribesmen, having been born within a mile or two of 
old Pokagon's tribal village. There were boys with fish for sale, 
fish larger than any inhabiting the waters of Michigan streams, 
sturgeons only excepted, and this promised well for the fun in 
store when we should reach our journey's end. 

Finally, on a bright June day in the year 1854, the writer, 
then a boy of twelve, with his brother, three years younger, were 
fully transplanted from their Michigan birthplace to the row of 
stores and warehouses which fronted on the "levee" at Prescott, 
Wisconsin, where the waters of St. Croix River and Lake join 
the Mississippi. The town was then a typical frontier settlement. 
Two hundred white people were planted among five hundred 
Chippewa Indians; with as many more Sioux, of the Red Wing 
band, across the river in Minnesota, a few miles lower down 
the river. The not infrequent outbreaks of the hereditary enmity 
existing between these ancient foes, would expend itself on 
the streets of the town in war whoops, gunpowder, and scalping 
knives, enlivening the experience of the average citizen as he 
dodged behind the nearest cover to avoid stray bullets; while the 
city marshal was given an opportunity to earn his salary, by 
driving out both bands of hostiles at the point of his revolver. 



Chapter II 

Indians, Dugouts, and Wolves 

In that early day when my acquaintance with the Mississippi 
began, Indians were numerous. Their dugouts lay at the levee 
by the dozen, the hunters retailing the ducks and geese, or venison 
and bear meat, which had fallen to their guns, while the squaws 
peddled catfish and pickerel that had been ensnared on the hooks 
and lines of the women and children of the party. 

Situated as Prescott was at the junction of the St. Croix with 
the Mississippi, its citizens were favored with visits both from the 
Chippewa, who hunted and fished along the former stream and its 
tributaries in Wisconsin, and the Sioux, w^ho made the bottom 
lands on the Minnesota side of the river, between Hastings and 
Red Wing, their home and hunting ground. This was the 
boundary line which had existed for a hundred years or more; 
although the Sioux (or Dakota) laid claim to many thousand 
square miles of hunting grounds in Wisconsin, for which they 
actually received a million and a half dollars when they quit- 
claimed it to the United States. Their claim to any lands on 
the east side of the river had been disputed by the Chippewa from 
time out of mind; and these rival claims had occasionally been, as 
we have seen, referred to the only court of arbitration which the 
Indians recognized — that of the tomahawk and scalping knife. 

As a boy I have spent many an hour searching in the sands 
at the foot of the bluffs below Prescott, for arrowheads, rusted 
remnants of knives and hatchets, and for the well-preserved brass 
nails with which the stocks and butts of old-time trade muskets 
were plentifully ornamented. Just how many years ago that 
battle had been fought, does not appear to be a matter of historical 
record. That it was fiercely contested, is abundantly proven by 
the great amount of wreckage of the fight which the white lads 



INDIANS, DUGOUTS, AND WOLVES 21 

of Prescott recovered to be sold to tourists on the steamboats which 
touched at our levee. The Indians themselves had a tradition 
that it was a bloody fight. Taking the word of a Chippewa 
narrator, one was easily convinced that hundreds of Sioux bit 
the sand on that eventful day. If the narrator happened to belong 
across the river, one felt assured, after listening to his version, 
that the Chippewa met their Marathon on this battle plain. In 
any case the treasure trove indicated a very pretty fight, whichever 
party won the field. 

Charlevoix, the French historian, relates that in 1689 Le Seuer 
established a fortified trading post on the west side of the Missis- 
sippi, about eight miles below the present site of Hastings. In 
speaking of this fort, he says : 

"The island has a beautiful prairie, and the French of Canada have 
made it a centre of commerce for the western parts, and many pass the 
winter here, because it is a good country for hunting." 

As a boy I have many a time visited the site of this ancient 
stronghold, and hobnobbed with the Indians then occupying the 
ground, descendants of those with whom the French fraternized 
two hundred years ago. At this point the islands are about four 
miles across from the main channel of the river; the islands 
being formed by Vermillion Slough, which heads at Hastings, 
reentering the river about two and a half miles above Red Wing. 
Trudell Slough, which heads in the river about four miles below 
Prescott, joins Vermillion at the point at which was probably 
located Le Seuer 's post. At the juncture of the two sloughs there 
was a beautiful little prairie of several acres. On the west, the 
bluffs rose several hundred feet to the level prairie which con- 
stitutes the upper bench. Just at this point there are three mounds 
rising fifty to seventy-five feet above the level of the prairie, and 
serving as a landmark for miles around. Whether they are of 
geological origin or the work of the Indians in their mound- 
building epoch, had not been determined in my day. There are 
other prominences of like character everywhere about, and it 
would seem that they were erected by the hand of man. 

On the north, east, and south the islands afforded good 
hunting grounds for the French and their allies. In 1854 and 
later (I think even yet), the site of this ancient fort was occupied 
by a band of Sioux Indians of Red Wing's tribe, under the sub- 



THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 



chieftaincy of a French half-breed named Antoine Mouseau 
(Mo'-sho). In Neill's history of the settlement of St. Paul he 
mentions Louis Mouseau as one of the first settlers occupying, in 
1839, a claim lying at the lower end of Da3'ton Bluff, about two 
miles down the river from the levee. This Antoine Mouseau, a 
man about forty in 1854, was probably a son of the St. Paul 
pioneer and of a squaw of Red Wing's band. 

In the days when the white boys of Prescott made adventurous 
trips "down to Mo-sho's", the islands were still remarkably rich 
in game — deer, bear, wolves, 'coons, mink, muskrats, and other 
fur-bearing animals; and in spring and fall the extensive rice 
swamps literally swarmed with wild fowl. Two or three of the 
adventures which served to add spice to such visits as we made 
with the little red men of Mouseau's tribe, will serve to illustrate 
the sort of life which was led by all Prescott boys in those early 
days. They seemed to be a part of the life of the border, and 
were taken as a matter of course. Looking back from this dis- 
tance, and from the civilization of to-day, it seems miraculous to 
me that all of those boys were not drowned or otherwise sum- 
marily disposed of. As a matter of fact none of them were 
drowned, and to the best of my knowledge none of them have 
as yet been hanged. Most of them went into the Union army in 
the War of Secession, and some of them are sleeping where the 
laurel and magnolia bend over their last resting places. 

The water craft with which the white boys and Indian boys 
alike traversed the river, rough or smooth, and explored every 
creek, bayou, and slough for miles around, were "dug-outs" — 
canoes hollowed out of white pine tree trunks. Some canoes were 
large and long, and would carry four or five grown persons. 
Those owned and used by the boys were from six to eight feet 
long, and just wide enough to take in a not too-well-developed 
lad; but then, all the boys were lean and wiry. It thus happened 
that the Blaisdells, the Boughtons, the Fifields, the Millers, the 
Merricks, the Schasers, the Smiths, and the Whipples, and several 
other pairs and trios ranging from fourteen years down to seven, 
were pretty generally abroad from the opening of the river in 
the spring until its closing in the fall, hunting, fishing and 
exploring, going miles away, up or down the river or lake, and 
camping out at night, often without previous notice to their 



INDIANS, DUGOUTS, AND WOLVES 23 

mothers. With a "hunk" of bread in their pockets, some matches 
to kindle a fire, a gun and fishlines, they never were in danger 
of starvation, although always hungry. 

One of the incidents referred to, I accept more on the evidence 
of my brother than of my own consciousness of the situation when 
it occurred. He was eleven at the time, and I fourteen. We 
each had a little pine "dug-out", just large enough to carry one 
boy sitting in the stern, and a reasonable cargo of ducks, fish 
or fruit. With such a load the gunwales of the craft vv^ere 
possibly three or four inches above the water line. The canoe 
itself was round on the bottom, and could be rolled over and 
over by a boy lying flat along the edges, with his arms around 
it, as we often did for the amusement of passengers on the boats — 
rolling down under water and coming up on the other side, all 
the time holding fast to the little hollowed-out log. Such a 
craft did not appear to be very seaworthy, nor well calculated 
to ride over rough water. Indeed, under the management of a 
novice they would not stay right side up in the calmest water. 

For the boys who manned them, however, whether whites 
or Indians, they were as seaworthy as Noah's ark, and much 
easier to handle. A show piece much in vogue, was to stand 
on the edge of one of these little round logs (not over eight 
feet long), and with a long-handled paddle propel the thing 
across the river. This was not always, nor usually, accomplished 
without a ducking; but it often was accomplished by white boys 
without the ducking, and that even when there was some wind 
and little waves. The Indian lads would not try it in public. 
For one thing, it was not consonant with Indian dignity; for 
another, an Indian, big or little, dislikes being laughed at, and 
a ducking always brought a laugh when there were any spec- 
tators. I cannot, after all these years, get over an itching to 
try this experiment again. I believe that I could balance myself 
all right; but the difference between sixty pounds and a hundred 
and sixty might spoil the game. 

Some boys, more fortunate than others, were from time to 
time possessed of birch-bark canoes — small ones. Of all the 
craft that ever floated, the birch-bark comes nearer being the 
ideal boat than any other. So light is it, that it may be carried 
on the head and shoulders for miles without great fatigue; and 



24 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

it sits on the water like a whiff of foam — a veritable fairy 
craft. It was the custom of the boys who owned these little 
"birches" to shove them off the sand with a run, and when they 
were clear of the land to jump over the end, and standing erect, 
paddle away like the wind. This was another show piece, and 
was usually enacted for the benefit of admiring crowds of Eastern 
passengers on the steamboats. 

On one such occasion, a young man from the East who 
professed to be a canoeist, and who possibly was an expert with 
an ordinary canoe, came off the boat, and after crossing the 
palm of the birch-bark's owner with a silver piece, proposed to 
take a little paddle by himself. The boy was an honest boy, 
as boys averaged then and there, and although not averse to 
having a little fun at the expense of the stranger, in his capacity 
of lessor he deemed it his duty to caution his patron that a birch- 
bark was about as uncertain and tricky a proposition as any one 
would wish to tackle — especially such a little one as his own 
was. He proposed to hold it until his passenger had stepped in and 
sat down and was ready to be shoved off. This was the usual 
procedure, and it had its good points for the average tourist. But 
this one had seen the boys shoving the same canoe off the sand 
and jumping over the stern, and he proposed to do the same 
thing, because he was used to canoes himself. Against the cautions 
of the owner he did shove off and jump, but he did not alight 
in the canoe. That elfish little piece of Indian deviltry was not 
there when he arrived; it slipped out from under him, sidewise, 
and with a spring which jumped it almost clear of the water 
it sailed away before the wind, while the canoeist went head- 
first into six or eight feet of water, silk hat, good clothes and 
all, amid the howls of delight from the passengers on the steamer 
who had been watching him. He was game, however, and 
admitted that he had never imagined just how light and ticklish 
a birch-bark was; nor how much science it required to jump 
squarely over the stern of such a fragile creation and maintain 
one's balance. Woodmen and canoeists familiar with "birches" 
will understand just how small a deviation is required to bring 
discomfiture. A little carelessness on the part of an old hand 
is often just as fatal as a little ignorance on the part of the 
tenderfoot. 



INDIANS, DUGOUTS, AND WOLVES 25 

But I digress. On the trip concerning which I started to 
tell, my brother and I had been down to the Indian village and 
were on our way home. When we emerged from Trudell Slough 
we found a gale blowing from the south, against the current of 
the river, and great combing waves were running, through which 
it seemed impossible to ride in our little boats. However, we 
had to cross the river in order to get home, and we did not 
long debate the question. Being the oldest I took the lead, Sam 
following. He was but eleven years old, and had a boat all by 
himself to manage in that sea. But he could paddle a canoe as 
well as any Indian boy. I also could paddle, and being older, 
nearly fourteen, was supposed to have the wisdom of the ages 
in the matter of judgment in meeting and riding combers. 

Under these conditions, I started out to make the crossing. 
My brother has told me since that he never thought of any 
danger to himself; but he figured, a dozen times, that I was 
gone — in fact he lost three or four good bets that I would not 
come up again after going down out of sight. My canoe would go 
down into the trough of the sea at the same time that his did, 
thus he would lose track of me. He had to keep his eyes on 
the "combers" and meet them at just the right angle, or he 
himself would have been the "goner". Sometimes he would not 
locate me until he had met three or four big ones. Then he 
would rise over the tops of the waves at the same time and 
would be able to reassure himself that I was still right side up 
and paddling for life, and that he was out another bet. I do 
not know that I thought of the danger at all, as I simply had 
my canoe to look out for. Had Sam been in front I would 
have realized, as he did, that we were taking lots of chances, 
and would have learned from the diving of his craft just how 
great the danger really was, as he did. We shipped a good deal 
of water — that is, a good deal for the amount we could afford 
to take in and maintain any margin between the gunwales of 
our canoes and the water outside. Before we got across we were 
sitting in several inches of water, but a little baling cleared this 
out as soon as we reached the Wisconsin side, and we proceeded 
up the river, hugging the shore and keeping in the eddies and 
under the points, without further adventures. I do not think 
we mentioned the crossing as anything to brag of, as under the 



26 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

circumstances any of the boys would have done the same thing 
in the same way. 

One other incident in which the little canoe figured, involved 
the closest call to drowning I ever had as a boy. Again I was 
out with my brother, some ten miles down the river, near Diamond 
Bluff, fishing and scouting about in the customary manner. Sam 
was ahead of me, and had landed on a pile of driftwood lodged 
against a giant cottonwood which had been undermined by the 
eating away of the river bank. In falling, one or more of its 
branches had been so deeply driven into the bottom of the river 
that it held at right angles with the current, extending out fifty 
feet or more into the channel. Against this obstruction all sorts 
of logs, lumber, and other drift had lodged, forming a large 
raft. My brother had run in under the lower side of this and 
climbed out, preparatory to dropping his line for fish. I, doubt- 
less carelessly, drifted down toward the upper side. One of the 
limbs which did not quite reach the surface so as to be seen, caught 
my little vessel and in an instant I was in the water, and under 
the raft. I thought I was surely gone, for I supposed that the 
driftwood was deep enough to catch and hold me. I had presence 
of mind enough left, however, to do the only thing which was 
left — dive as deeply as possible, and with open eyes steer clear of 
the many branches through which I had to find my way tow^ard 
the open water on the lee side of the raft, Sam ran to the lower 
side to catch me if I came up — an expectation which he had little 
hope of realizing, thinking as I did that I would be caught like 
a rat in a trap, and never come up until dug out. Fortunately 
the drift was not deep, and the limbs not very close together, and 
I popped up as I cleared the last log, but with so little breath 
left that another ten feet would have drowned me. Sam caught 
me by the hand and "yanked" me out on the drift, where I lay 
and took in air for some minutes to fill out my collapsed lungs. 
In another ten minutes we were fishing as if nothing had happened. 

In these upsets which we were almost daily experiencing, our 
costumes played an important though passive part. The entire 
uniform of the average river lad of those days consisted of a 
pair of blue jean trousers, a calico shirt, a home-made straw hat, 
and sometimes a pair of "galluses". The last named item indicated 
an extravagant expenditure; one "gallus" was ample for all 



INDIANS, DUGOUTS, AND WOLVES 27 

practical purposes; the second represented luxury and wanton 
extravagance. With such a costume a boy in the water was 
practically unhampered, and could and did swim with all the 
freedom of an unclothed cupid. One of the customary relaxations 
of the Prescott boys was to run down Orange Street when school 
"let out", in single file, dressed as above described, hats and all, 
and dive from the ledge of rocks fifteen feet high into water 
forty feet deep. 

It was on one of these excursions that I had the only real 
scare of my life. This may sound like braggadocio, but it is a 
fact. I have been in places since that time, where I thought 
death imminent, and knew that it was possible, if not prob- 
able, at any moment; but in such situations I have more or less 
successfully been able to conceal the fact of fear. In the case in 
question I did not attempt to conceal from myself the fact that I 
was sincerely alarmed. 

We had, late in the autumn, landed at a desolate coulee 
several miles below Prescott. I had gone back about half a mile 
from the river, on to the prairie, leaving my brother at the canoe. 
Suddenly I heard the long-drawn hunting cry of a wolf. Look- 
ing in the direction of the sound I saw a big grey timber wolf 
loping toward me with the speed of a race horse. His cries were 
answered from a distance, and then I saw six other big wolves 
bounding over the prairie after me. 

I looked around for some place of safety and saw at some 
distance — a good deal less than a quarter of a mile, as I know 
it now, but it looked all of that at the time — a small burr oak, 
the only tree near enough to be available in this crisis. I knew 
enough about the big timber wolves to know that I would instantly 
be in ribbons after they were upon me. One alone might be 
kept off; but seven would have the courage of numbers, and 
would make short work of a single boy. Then I was scared. 
I could actually feel every hair upon my head standing straight 
on end, as stiff as Hamlet's "quills upon the fretful porcupine". 
It has been worth all that it cost, this hair-raising experience, 
as an interpretation of the much-quoted expression from the 
immortal Bard of Avon. 

A good runner, I had a full half mile the start of the leading 
wolf. I did not wait for him greatly to diminish the lead, but 



28 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

"lit out" for the little burr oak. I covered the ground in the 
shortest time I had ever devoted to a like distance, and although 
very nearly winded jumped for the lower limbs and pulled myself 
up just in time to escape the teeth of the forward beast. In 
another minute there were seven of them, leaping to within a 
few feet of my legs as I stood on a branch of the small tree, as 
high up as I dared to go. 

My brother had heard the cries of the wolves, and running 
to the top of the bank had watched the race with great interest. 
When the tree was safely reached he shouted to me to hold on 
and he would go for help, and he at once started for Prescott, 
four miles away, against the current. For some reason which 
I have never been able to explain, the wolves, after yelping and 
leaping for an hour or so, suddenly started off across the prairie, 
and when they had gone a mile away I climbed down and ran 
for home. In the meantime my hair had resumed its normal 
position, and never since, under any circumstances, have I expe- 
rienced a like sensation. I presume that the thought of being 
torn to pieces by the wolves, a contingency which seemingly was 
quite probable, added a horror to the imminence of death which 
was not present at a time when there was an equal chance of 
being drowned. It was not because I did not know all about 
wolves, for I did. Their cries were familiar sounds in that wild 
country, and their ferocity had been proven time and again; but 
I had never heard nor seen them when it meant quite so much to 
me, nor when the chances seemed so slim. 



Chapter III 



On the Levee at Prescott 

When we first knew it, Prescott was in many respects a 
typical river town. But in one, it differed from all others with 
the possible exception of Wacouta and Reed's Landing. "Towing 
through" had not then been inaugurated. The great rafts of 
logs and lumber from Stillwater and the upper St. Croix, were 
pushed to Prescott by towboats from Stillwater, at the head of 
the lake. From there to Lake Pepin they drifted. They were 
again pushed through that lake by other boats, and from Reed's 
Landing, at the foot of the lake, drifted to their destination at 
Winona, La Crosse, Clinton, Le Claire, or Hannibal. 

The necessary preparation for the trip down river was 
made at Prescott. Stores of pork, beans, flour, molasses, and 
whiskey were laid in. The hundreds of rough men who handled 
the great steering oars on these rafts spent their money in the 
saloons which lined the river front and adjacent streets, filling 
themselves with noxious liquors, and often ending their "sprees" 
with a free fight between rival crews. A hundred men would 
join in the fray, the city marshal sitting on a "snubbing post", 
revolver in hand, watching the affair with the enlightened eye 
of an expert and the enjoyment of a connoisseur. 

Prescott was also a transfer point for freight consigned to 
Afton, Lakeland, Hudson, Stillwater, Osceola, and St. Croix 
Falls. The large boats, unless they were heavily freighted for 
Stillwater and Hudson, did not make the run of thirty miles up 
the lake. The freight was put ashore at Prescott, and reshipped 
on the smaller boats plying between Prescott and St. Croix River 
points. This made necessary large warehouses in which to store 
the transshipped goods. My father, L. H. Merrick, engaged in 
this business of storing and transshipping, as well as dealing in 



30 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

boat-stores and groceries. Buying one warehouse on the levee, 
he started a store in the basement, which opened directly on to 
the levee. Moving his family into the two upper stories, he 
began at once the erection of a second and larger warehouse. 
These being insufficient for his business, he bought, in 1855, a 
third warehouse. These were filled, in summer, with goods in 
transit, and in winter with wheat awaiting the opening of navi- 
gation for shipment to Eastern markets, via Dunleith, Illinois, 
at that time the nearest railroad connection on the river. The 
name of this one-time prosperous city has, however, disappeared 
from the map, to be replaced by East Dubuque. 

From 1854 until 1858 the firm of L. H. Merrick & Co. 
(the company being William R. Gates, my brother-in-law) did 
all the transfer and storage business for the regular packets 
belonging to the Galena, Dubuque, Dunleith & St. Paul Packet 
Company, commonly shortened to Minnesota Packet Company, and 
also for such "wild" boats as did not make the run up the lake. 

The business was very profitable. Much of the freight 
consisted of pork and beef in barrels, whiskey, sugar in hogsheads 
(refined sugar was then scarcely known on the upper river), rice, 
soap, etc., which, if there was no boat ready to receive it, could 
be covered with tarpaulins on the levee, thus saving the cost of 
putting it in the warehouses. The perishable freight and house- 
hold goods were of course stored under cover. A man was always 
on duty to meet incoming boats at night, and to watch the freight 
piled on the levee. Sometimes, when there was a large amount of 
such freight left outside, we boys spent the night skylarking about 
the piles, keeping our eyes open to see that the ubiquitous raftsmen 
did not surreptitiously transfer some of the packages to the ever- 
present rafts. The transfer agents paid the freight on the goods 
from the lower river points to Prescott, and charged a commission 
of from five to twenty-five per cent for such advance. In addition, 
a charge was made for storage, whether the freight was actually 
placed in the warehouse or simply covered and watched on the 
levee. If the goods were from Pittsburg or St. Louis, the freight 
bills were usually large, and a five per cent commission would 
produce a quite respectable income. If the cargo were divided 
into small lots, so much the better. No package, however small, 
escaped for less than a quarter ("two bits", as money was then 





PreSCOTT Levee in ISTB. Showing Steamer "Centennial" and the little 
Hastings fern-, "Plough Boy." The double warehouse, showing five windows in 
the second story and four in the third was the building in which the author lived 
when a boy. 

Prescott Levee in 190S. Rut one business building — one of the old Mer- 
rick warehouses, left intact. Dunbar's Hall gutted by fire recently. The large 
steamboat warehouse next to it destroyed some years ago. All the shipping 
business gone to the railroad, which runs just back of the buildings shown. 



LEVEE AT PRESCOTT 33 

reckoned) ; and in addition to the commission on the money 
advanced, there was an additional charge for storage, graduated, 
as I have before stated, upon the value and perishability of the 
freight handled. Altogether it was a very profitable occupation 
until the year 1858, when there appeared a new bidder for the 
business, knocking down the rates of commission and storage, 
as well as cutting the business in two by getting the agency of 
many of the boats, heretofore served by the old firm. 

My brother and myself "bunked" in the garret of the ware- 
house in which we had made our temporary home. There were 
two windows fronting the river, and I feel sure that at night 
no steamboat ever landed at the levee without having at least 
two spectators, carefully noting its distinguishing characteristics. 
Was she a side-wheel or stern-wheel? Was she large or small? 
Had she trimmings on her smokestack, or about the pilot house, 
and if so of what description? Had she a "Texas", or no 
"Texas"? Were the outside blinds painted white, red, or green? 
What was the sound of her whistle and bell ? All of these points, 
and many others, were taken in, and indelibly impressed upon 
our memories, so that if the whistle or bell were again heard, per- 
haps months afterward, the name of the boat could be given 
with almost unfailing accuracy. It was a part of the education 
of the "levee rats", as the boys were called. A boy that could 
not distinguish by ear alone a majority of the boats landing at 
the levee from year to year, was considered as deficient in his 
education. Of course every boy in town could tell what craft 
was coming as soon as she whistled, if she was one of the regular 
"packets". Every boat had a whistle toned and tuned so that 
it might be distinguished from that of any other boat of the 
same line. The bells, which were always struck as the boat 
came into the landing, also differed widely in tone. There was 
one, the music of which will live in my memory so long as life 
lasts. The tone of the "Ocean Wave's" bell was deep, rich, 
sonorous, and when heard at a distance on a still, clear night, 
was concentrated sweetness. Were I rich I would, were it a 
possibility, find that bell and hang it in some bell-less steeple 
where I might hear again its splendid tones, calling not alone 
to worship, but summoning for me from the misty past pictures 
indelibly printed upon boyish senses. 



34 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

A picturesque and animated scene, was one of these night 
landings; the discharge and taking on of freight, the shouting 
of orders, the escaping of steam, and all the sights and sounds 
which for the time transformed the levee from its usual quietude 
and darkness, broken only by the faint glimmer of the watchman's 
lantern and the ripple of the water upon the beach, into life, 
light, and activitj^ 

The advent of the electric search-light has driven from the 
river one of the most picturesque of all the accessories to such 
scenes as we boys looked down upon, night after night, during 
the busy times of 1854 ^^^ 1855, before I myself became part 
and parcel of it all. The torch, by the light of which the work 
went on by night, was within an iron basket, about a foot in 
diameter and eighteen inches deep, swung loosely between the 
prongs of a forked iron bar or standard, which could be set in 
holes in the forward deck, leaning far out over the water, so 
as to allow live coals from the burning wood to fall into the 
river, and not upon deck. 

When a landing was to be made at a woodyard or a town, 
the watchman filled one or perhaps two of these torch baskets 
with split "light-wood", or "fat-wood" — Southern pine full of 
resinous sap, which would burn fiercely, making a bright light, 
illuminating the deck of the boat and the levee for hundreds of 
feet around. As the boat neared the landing the pine splinters 
were lighted at the furnace door, the torch being carried to place 
and firmly fixed in its socket. Then came out the attending 
demon who fed the burning, smoking "jack" w4th more pine fat- 
wood, and from time to time with a ladle of pulverized rosin. 
The rosin would flare up with a fierce flame, followed by thick 
clouds of black smoke, the melted tar falling in drops upon the 
water, to float away, burning and smoking until consumed. This 
addition to the other sights and sounds served more than any other 
thing to give this night work a wild and weird setting. We 
boys decided, on many a night, that we would "go on the river" 
and feed powdered rosin and pine kindlings to torches all night 
long, as the coal-black and greasy, but greatly envied white lamp- 
boy did, night after night, in front of our attic windows on the 
levee at Prescott. The cleaner and brighter, but very common- 
place electric light has driven the torch from the river; and if 



LEVEE AT PRESCOTT 35 

one is to be found at all in these degenerate days it will be as 
a curiosity in some historical museum. 

And thus we grew into the very life of the river as we 
grew in years. I finally attained an age when my services were 
worth something in the economy of a steamboat's crew. My first 
venture was made in company with one who afterward attained 
rank and honor in the civil service of the state — the Honorable 
Sam. S. Fifield, lieutenant-governor of Wisconsin. I have a letter 
written by Mr. Fifield since I began writing these sketches, in 
which he says that he recollects the writer as a "white-haired 
boy, full of all sorts of pranks". I presume this description of 
how I looked and what I did is correct; but forty years ago to 
have applied to him any such personal description of his thatch 
would have been a casus belli for which nothing but blood could 
atone. It is white, now; at that time it was a subdued brindle, 
with leanings toward straw, and a subject not lightly to be dis- 
cussed in the presence of its owner. 

The stern-wheel steamer "Kate Cassell" wintered above the 
lake — that is, above Lake Pepin — I think at Diamond Bluff, 
where at the close of navigation she was caught in the ice. In 
the spring her captain appeared, with an engineer, a pilot, a 
steward, and possibly some other officers, and picked up the 
remainder of officers and crew 'longshore. I remember that one 
of my schoolmates, Nat. Blaisdell, went as assistant engineer, Russ. 
Ruley as mate, and a number of longshoremen from Prescott as 
deck hands, while Sam Fifield and I were pantry boys. Sam got 
enough of it in a few trips between St. Paul and Rock Island. I 
stayed through the season. We both were printers. Sam went 
back to the case at once; I went to mine again in the fall, after 
the close of navigation, and stuck type during the winter, as I also 
did each returning season while on the river. 

The next spring I engaged with "Billy" Hamilton, as a "cub" 
engineer. Prior to starting out on the season's run the machinery 
of the boat ("Fanny Harris") had to be put in order. There 
was a regular blacksmith's forge on board. All river engineers 
were, perforce, good blacksmiths, able to make anything pertaining 
to the machinery which it was possible to make from wrought 
iron bars with an ordinary forge and anvil, with a twelve-pound 
striking hammer and a two-pound shaper. We made scores of 



36 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

extra "stirrups" — the double bolts, with nuts, that clamp the 
"buckets" to the wheel-arms. We made hog-chains and chimney 
guys, and, as needed, bent them into place. The boilers, engines, 
and "Doctor" — the steam pump for feeding water to the boilers, 
pumping out the steamer, etc. — were all overhauled and put 
in perfect order. The engines were leveled and "lined up"; the 
eccentrics were carefully adjusted and securely fastened; the "nig- 
ger" hoisting engine, for handling freight and warping the boat 
over sand-bars was fitted up, and a hundred other minor but 
important matters were attended to, so that when steam was 
raised and turned on, the wheel would "turn over", and the 
boat go. Some wheels did not at first turn over, and it was not 
to the credit of the man who had lined the engines and set the 
eccentrics. Billy Hamilton's wheel, however, turned over the 
first trial. 

Had I followed up this line of activity under Billy's tutelage, 
no doubt I would have become a capable engineer, for I liked 
the work and took a genuine delight in handling machinery, a 
liking which I have not yet outgrown. But there were decided 
drawbacks. The reversing gear of a Mississippi River steamboat, 
in old times, was like nothing else of its kind, anywhere under 
the sun. The engines were of the lever and poppet-valve order, 
and the reversing gear was heavy. The connecting-rod (cam-rod, 
we called it) weighed at least fifty pounds, even though it was 
attached to the "rock-shaft" at one end. In reversing, the end 
of the connecting-rod was lifted off its hook at the bottom, the 
lever thrown over, in which operation two heavy valve-levers were 
raised, the rod lifted about three feet, and dropped on to the 
upper hook. It was all right when you did this once or twice in 
making a landing; but in a piece of "crooked river", the boat 
dodging about among reefs and bars, with the bells coming faster 
than you could answer them, it was another matter, and became 
pretty trying work for a stripling boy; his arms could not keep 
the pace. 

Another drawback in the life of a "cub" engineer was the 
fact that when in port there was no let-up to the work. In 
fact, the worst part of it came then. As soon as the steamer 
reached her destination at Galena, the pilots were at liberty until 
the hour of sailing; not so with the engineers. We usually reached 



LEVEE AT PRESCOTT 37 

Galena Thursday evening or night, and left for up river Friday 
evening. As soon as the boat was made fast the "mud-valves" 
were opened, the fires drawn, the water let out of the boilers, 
and the process of cleaning began. Being a slim lad, one of 
my duties was to creep into the boilers through the manhole, 
which was just large enough to let me through; and with a 
hammer and a sharp-linked chain I must "scale" the boilers by 
pounding on the two large flues and the sides with the hammer, 
and sawing the chain around the flues until all the accumulated 
mud and sediment was loosened. It was then washed out by 
streams from the deck-hose, the force-pump being manned by 
the firemen, of whom there were eight on our four-boiler boat. 

Scaling boilers was what decided me not to persevere in the 
engineering line. To lie flat on one's stomach on the top of a 
twelve-inch flue, studded with rivet heads, with a space of only 
fifteen inches above one's head, and in this position haul a chain 
back and forth without any leverage whatever, simply by the 
muscles of the arm, with the thermometer 90° in the shade, was 
a practice well calculated to disillusionize any one not wholly 
given over to mechanics. While I liked mechanics I knew when 
I had enough, and therefore reached out for something one deck 
higher. The unexpected disability of our "mud clerk", as the 
second clerk is called on the river, opened the way for an ascent, 
and I promptly availed myself of it. 



Chapter IV 

In the Engine-room 

Before leaving the main deck, with its savory scents of scorch- 
ing oil, escaping steam, and soft-coal gas, let me describe some 
of the sights, sounds, and activities which impressed themselves 
upon the memory of the young "cub" during his brief career as 
an embryo engineer. 

The engine-room crew of a Mississippi steamer varies as the 
boat is a side-wheeler or a stern-wheeler. In my day, a stern- 
wheeler carried two engineers, a "first" and a "second". The 
former was chosen for his age and experience, to him being confided 
the responsibility of the boat's machinery. His knowledge, care, 
and oversight were depended upon to keep the engines, boilers, etc., 
in good repair, and in serviceable condition. The second engineer 
received less wages, and his responsibility ended in standing his 
watch, handling the engines, and in keeping enough water in the 
boilers to prevent the flues from burning, as well as to avoid an 
explosion. If a rival boat happened to be a little ahead or a 
little behind, or alongside, and the "second" was on watch, the 
margin of water between safety and danger in the boilers was 
usually kept nearer the minimum than it would have been were 
the "chief" in command. It is very much easier to get hot 
steam with little water than with much; and hot steam is a 
prime necessity when another boat is in sight, going the same 
direction as your own. 

On the "Fanny Harris", the pilots always depended upon 
Billy Hamilton when in a race, as he would put on the "blowers" 
— the forced draft, as it is called in polite, though less expressive 
language — and never let the water get above the second gauge, 
and never below the first, if he could help it. Sometimes it was 
a matter of doubt where the water really was, the steam coming 



IN THE ENGINE-ROOM 39 

pretty dry when tried by the "gauge-stick" — a broom handle, 
which, pushed against the gauges, of which there were three in the 
end of the boiler (three inches apart, vertically, the lower one situ- 
ated just above the water-line over the top of the flues), opened the 
valve and permitted the steam and water to escape into a short 
tin trough beneath. If a stream of water ran from the first and 
second gauges when so tried, but not from the third, there was 
a normal and healthy supply of water in the boilers. If the 
water came from the first, but not from the second, the "Doctor" 
was started and the supply increased. When it reached the third 
gauge the supply was cut off. If, as I have seen it, there was, 
when tried, none in the first or lower gauge, there followed a 
guessing match as to just how far below the minimum the water 
really was, and what would be the result of throwing in a supply 
of cold water. The supply was always thrown in, and that 
quickly, as time counts in such cases. 

The pilot at the wheel, directly over the boilers, is in blissful 
ignorance of the vital question agitating the engineer. He may 
at times have his suspicions, as the escape pipes talk in a language 
which tells something of the conditions existing below decks; 
but if the paddle wheels are turning over with speed, he seldom 
worries over the possibilities which lie beneath him. His answer 
to the question, whether the water is below the safety point, 
comes as he feels the deck lifting beneath his feet, and he sails 
away to leeward amid the debris of a wrecked steamboat. 

Probably four-fifths of the boiler explosions which have taken 
place on the Mississippi River during the last eighty years — and 
there have been hundreds of such — were the result of these 
conditions: low water in the boilers, exposing the plates until 
red-hot, then throwing in water and "jumping" the steam pressure 
faster than the engines or safety-valve could release it, followed 
by the inevitable giving away of the whole fabric of the boiler, 
wrecking the steamer, and usually killing and scalding many of 
the passengers and crew. 

On a side-wheel boat the make-up of the engine crew is 
different. In addition to the first and second engineers there are 
two "cubs", or "strikers". The stern-wheeler has two engines, 
but they are both coupled to the same shaft, by a crank at each 
end. The throttle wheel is in the centre of the boat. One man 



40 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

operates the two engines, and assists at landings, but in a bad 
piece of river is helped by one of the firemen, who is called aft 
by a little bell controlled by a cord from the engine-room. This 
man "ships up" on the port side, while the engineer "ships up" 
on the starboard. "Shipping up" was the term used to describe 
the act of shifting the cam-rod from the lower pin on the reversing 
lever to the upper, or vice versa. If done at a sudden call, the 
engineer ran to one side and "shipped up", then across the deck 
to the other, and then back to the centre to "give her steam". 
That is all changed now by the adoption of an improved reversing 
gear, similar to that on a railway locomotive, the throwing of a 
lever at the centre of the boat operating the reversing gears on 
both engines at once. Instead of the old-time "short-link", or "cut- 
off hook", the equivalent of the "hooking-back" on a locomotive 
when under way is performed by the engineer at the centre of the 
boat by hooking back the reversing lever one, two, or three notches, 
exactly as on the locomotive. Fifty years ago this simple device 
had not been adopted on the river. 

On the side- wheel boat, to get back to my subject, the engines 
are independent — one engine to each wheel. One may be coming 
ahead while the other is backing, or they may both be reversing 
at the same time. A man is therefore required to operate each 
engine, hence the necessity for a "striker", or "cub", to take one 
engine while the engineer on watch takes the other. The engineer 
on duty, be he chief or assistant, takes the starboard engine and 
controls the running of the machinery and the feeding of the 
boilers during his watch; the "cub" takes the port engine and 
works under the direction of his superior on watch. As I have 
stated at the beginning of this chapter, the handling of these 
powerful engines was hard work, even for a grown man, when 
the river was low and the pilot was feeling his way over a crossing 
in a dark night, with both leads going, and the wheels doing much 
of the work of keeping the boat in the intricate channel between 
the reefs. Then it was that the bells came thick and fast — to 
stop, to back, to come ahead again, to slow, to come ahead full 
steam, and again to stop and back and come ahead. Then the 
cut-off hook was pulled up by a rope attached to the deck beams 
overhead, and the heavy cam-rod was lifted from the lower hook 
to the upper by main strength, or dropped from the upper to the 



IN THE ENGINE-ROOM 41 

lower with scant regard for the finish on the bright work, to be 
lifted again at the call of the next bell from the pilot, and all 
this a dozen times, or even more, in making one crossing. 

And all the time the "cub" was in deadly fear of getting 
his engine caught on the centre, a calamity in both material and 
moral sense, as a "centre" might mean the disablement of an 
engine at a critical moment, throwing the steamer out of the 
channel, and hanging her up for hours, or even for days, on a sand- 
bar. It might even have a more calamitous sequence, by running 
her on the rocks or snags and sinking her. Hence, for pressing 
reasons, the most acute alertness was necessary on the part of 
the "striker". The moral obloquy of "centring" an engine was so 
great among river men, especially among engineers, that no "cub" 
ever again held his head high after suffering such a mischance; 
and it was a proud boast among the embryo engineers if they 
could honestly claim that they had never "centred" their engine. 
On general principles they always boasted of it as a fact, until 
some one appeared who could testify to the contrary. I enter 
that claim here and now without fear of successful contradiction. 
All my confederates in that business are now out of commission. 

One of the beauties of the puppet-valve engine, with its long 
stroke ^ and consequent "purchase" on the shaft-crank, was that 
by the aid of a billet of wood, about two and a half inches square, 
with a handle whittled off on one end, and with a loop of cord to 
hang it up by, or to hang it on one's wrist (where it was usually 
found when the boat was navigating a crooked piece of river), 
an increase of fifty per cent of steam could be let into the cylinder 
by the simple device of inserting the club between the rocker-arm 
and the lever which lifted the inlet valve, as graphically described 
in the paper by Mr. Holloway, quoted in this chapter. If the 
valve were normally lifted four inches by the rocker-arm, the 



1 The "stroke" of an engine is the distance traveled by the cross-head 
of the piston in making a complete revolution of the wheel — equal to 
twice the length of the crank on the water-wheel shaft. If the crank is 
three feet long, the stroke will be six feet. The stroke of the "Grey Eagle" 
of the Minnesota Packet Company was seven feet; that of the "J. M. 
White", lower river boat, was eleven feet. The cylinders of course 
equaled the full stroke in length. The longer the crank the greater the 
purchase, but at a consequent loss in the number of revolutions of the 
wheel per minute. 



42 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

insertion of the club would increase the lift by its thickness. 
This additional power fed to the cylinder at the right moment 
would drive the wheel over the centre when reversed with the 
boat going upstream at a speed of eight or ten miles an hour, 
against a four-mile current, with almost absolute certainty. With 
a ten-foot wheel, and three buckets in the water, one submerged 
to its full width of three feet, and the other two perhaps two 
feet, it can readily be understood by an engineer that to turn 
such a wheel back against the current required a great expenditure 
of power at just the right time. The "club" of the Western 
steamboat engineer solved the question of additional power at 
the critical moment. No short-stroke engine would respond to 
such a call. While this service tried the cylinders to their utmost 
— many times a little beyond their utmost, with a consequent loss 
of a cylinder head, and w^orse yet, a scalded engineer — the use 
of the club was justified by experience; and results which, with 
finer and more perfect machinery would have been impossible, 
were, day after day, made possible by reason of the crudeness and 
roughness of this usage. 

The great steamers plying on Long Island Sound attain a 
speed of twenty miles an hour, or even more. It is said that 
when under full speed it is possible to turn the wheels back over 
the centre within half a mile after steam has been shut off. Under 
ordinary conditions it is not necessary that they should be handled 
any faster. But think of the conditions under which a Mississippi 
River steamboat must stop and back, or suffer shipwreck. And 
imagine, if you can, the remarks a river pilot would make if the 
wheel were not turning back within thirty seconds after the bell 
was rung. I think five seconds would be nearer the limit for 
reversing and giving steam. In fact, on all side-wheel boats, the 
levers controlling the steam valves are attached to small tackles, 
and these are controlled by one lever, by which the steam levers 
may be raised in an instant, without closing the throttle at all, 
and the steam allowed to pass out through the escape pipes while 
the engine remains passive. 

Two ends are attained by this device: steam can instantly 
be shut off, or as quickly given to the cylinders, thus making 
a saving in time over the usual opening and closing of the steam 
ports by the throttle wheel. Another advantage is, that this device 



IN THE ENGINE-ROOM 43 

acts as a safety-valve; for, were the steam to be entirely shut 
off, and the safety-valve fail to w^ork, an explosion would certainly 
follow. By opening all the valves at once, and permitting as much 
steam to escape through the exhaust pipes as when the engine is 
in motion, the danger of an explosion is minimized. At the call 
of the pilot the levers can instantly be dropped and full steam 
ahead or reversed given at once — of course at the expense of 
a good deal of a "jolt" to the engines and cylinders. But the 
river engines were built to be "jolted", hence their practical 
adaptation to the service in which they were used. 

J. F. Holloway, of St. Louis, who, in his own words, "was 
raised on the river, having filled every position from roustabout 
to master", in a paper read before the American Society of Me- 
chanical Engineers at St. Louis in May, 1896, contributes the 
following description of a steamboat race as seen and heard in 
the engine-room — a point of view somewhat lacking, perhaps, 
in picturesqueness to the ordinary observer, but nevertheless very 
essential in winning a race. The writer is evidently as thoroughly 
at home in the engine-room as he is upon the roof: 

"The reason which induced the builders of engines for these Western 
river boats to adopt such peculiar construction could hardly be made clear 
without a careful description of the hull of the boats, and of the varying 
conditions to which both engines and hulls are subjected, and under which 
they must operate. The steam cylinders are placed on foundations as 
unstable as would be a raft, and the alignment is varied by the addition 
or removal of every ton of freight which the boats carry when afloat, and 
they are further distorted when aground, or when the boats are being 
dragged over sand bars having several inches less of water on them than 
is required to float the hull. While the calm study of the machinery of 
a Western river steamboat while at rest would be an interesting object 
lesson to any one at all interested in such matters, it can only be seen at its 
best at a time when some rival boat is striving with it for "the broom," 
and close behind is slowly gaining, with roaring furnaces, and chimneys 
belching out vast volumes of thick black smoke; when all on board, from 
the pilot above to the fireman below are worked up to the highest pitch 
of enthusiasm, and when engines, boilers, engineers and all concerned in 
the management of the boat, are called upon to show the stuflF which Is 
in them. I know of no more exciting scene than was often to be witnessed 
in the days of the old famous Ohio River ports, when a "ten-boiler" boat 
was trying to make a record, or take a wharf-boat landing away from 
some close-following rival steamer. To stand on the boiler deck at such 
a time on a big side-wheel boat, when in order to get ahead the pilot had 
made up his mind to close-shave a "tow-head," or take the dangerous 



44 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

chances of a new channel or a new "cut-off," and when all on board knew 
the risk he was taking, and standing by to help him through, or help 
themselves if he failed, was exciting to a degree. Then it was that the 
two most skilful and daring engineers were called on watch, and took 
their stands alongside their respective engines, stripped like gladiators for 
the tussle which soon came as the clanging starboard bell rang out to 
"slow down," and as the hasty ringing of the "jingler" over the port 
engine meant "crack it to her." Then as the bow of the big boat swung, 
all too slow to suit the emergency or the impatience of the pilot, a stopping 
starboard bell would ring, quick followed by a backing one which would 
set the engineer to wrestling with his "hooks," one of which he hangs 
up with a cord, and the other he picks up seemingly from somewhere on 
the platform. As the suddenly stopped and quivering wheel in the swift- 
flowing current hangs for a moment poised on the centre, the engineer, 
grasping his ever-at-hand club of wood, quickly thrusts it between the 
uprising rocker-arm and the lever that lifts the inlet puppet valve, to 
which widened opening of the steam-valve port the engine responds with 
a noise of escaping steam not unlike the roar of an enraged elephant 
when prodded with the iron hook of his keeper. The battle of the bells 
thus begun, waxes more fierce as the excitement increases. There are bells 
to the right, and bells to the left, and amid their discordant jangle the 
engineers are working like mad as they clutch the throttle, open or close 
"the bleeder," hook her on "ahead," or stop and back, in such rapid 
succession as that soon neither they, nor any one else, can tell how far 
behind the bells of the pilot they are. Then soon amid the wild roar of 
the pent-up steam as it rushes out of the safety-valve pipes, the exploding 
exhausts of the engines which at the end of each stroke sound as if the 
cylinder-head had blown off, and to which is added the shrill noise of the 
warning bell which calls to the firemen to "throw open the furnace doors," 
there comes from out the huge trumpet shaped pipe above the head of the 
engineers, and which leads down from the pilot-house, a hoarse shout, 
heard above all else, partaking alike of command, entreaty, and adjectives, 
urging something or other to be done, and done quick, else the boat and 
all on board of her, in a brief time will land in a place which by reason 
of the reputed entire absence of water could not well be called a "port" 
(and certainly is no port mentioned in the boat's manifests). This battle 
of the bells and irons goes on until, if in a race, the rival boat is passed 
or crowded to the bank, or the narrow channel widens out into the broad 
river, when the discordant jangle of the bells ceases, the tired engineer 
drops on the quiet "cut-off hook," lays by his emergency wooden club, and 
wiping the sweat from his heated brow, comes down from the foot-board 
to catch a breath of the cool air which sweeps over the guards, and to 
formulate in his mind the story which he will have to tell of the race just 
over, or the perils just past. 

But the old-time flyers which before the war tore their way up and 
down through the muddy waters of these Western rivers are all gone, 
and the marvelously skilled pilots of those days have gone too; the men 



IN THE ENGINE-ROOM 45 

who, through the darkest hours of the darkest nights, knew to within a 
few feet just where their boats were, and what was on the right or on the 
left, or beneath them, which was to be shunned. The engineers too, who 
with a courage born and nurtured amid the vicissitudes of a backwoods 
life, and with an experience and skill the outgrowth of trials and dangers 
gone through, have also passed away, and to the generation of the present 
are unhonored and unknown, as are the men who designed and built the 
hulls, and the workmen who, with crude and scant tools, built for them 
the machinery which they so well planned and handled. 

Who they were, and where they lie, is known to but few, if any. 
Did I but know their final resting-place, I would, like "Old Mortality," 
wish to carve anew, and deep, the fading records of their life and death, 
which time has so nearly obliterated, and to herald abroad the praise and 
honor due them as the designers, builders, and engineers, of the old-time 
Western river steamboats." 



Chapter V 

The Engineer 

It would be impossible to pick out any one man who handled 
an engine on the river fifty years ago, and in describing his 
habits and peculiarities claim him as a type of all river engineers 
of his time. The legendary engineer, such as Colonel Hay has 
given us, standing at the throttle of his engine on the ill-fated 
"Prairie Belle", waiting for signals from the pilot house, his boat 
a roaring furnace of fire, and whose spirit finally ascended with 
the smoke of his steamer, was a true type of one class, and 
possibly a large class, of old-time river engineers. Reckless, pro- 
fane, combative; yet courageous, proud of their calling, and to 
be depended upon to do their duty under any and all circum- 
stances; giving, if need be, their lives for the safety of the 
passengers and crew of the boat — such was one class. Another 
was composed of men equally courageous, equally to be depended 
upon in time of danger, but sober, quiet, religious, family men, 
who never used a profane word, never went on sprees ashore, 
never supported one wife at home and another at "Natchez under 
the Hill." 

On the boat upon which I gained the greater part of my 
river experience, we had the two types: George McDonald, chief, 
and Billy Hamilton, assistant. Either would have died at his 
post, the one with a prayer upon his lips, and the other with a 
jest; both alike alert, cool, efficient. McDonald was a Scotch 
Presbyterian, and might have been an elder in the church at 
home — perhaps he was. He was a religious man on board his 
boat, where religion was at a discount. He was a capable engi- 
neer; he could make anything that it was possible to make, on the 
portable forge in the steamer's smithy. He was always cool, 
deliberate, ready, and as chief was the captain's right-hand man 
in the engine-room. 



THE ENGINEER 47 



Billy Hamilton was his opposite in everything, save in pro- 
fessional qualifications. In these he was the equal of his chief, 
except in length of service, and consequent experience. The son 
of a Maryland slave owner, he was a "wild one" on shore, and 
a terror to the captain when on board and on duty. In a race 
with a rival boat his recklessness in carrying steam was always 
counted upon by the pilot on watch, to make up for any inherent 
difference in speed that might handicap our boat. He would put 
on the blower (forced draft) until solid chunks of live wood 
coals would be blown from the smokestacks. He vrould keep 
the water at the first gauge, or under it. He had a line rigged 
from the safety-valve lever, running aft to the engine-room. In 
times of peace the line was rove over a pulley fixed under the 
deck, above the safety-valve. A pull on the line in this position 
would raise the valve and allow the steam to escape. When 
another boat was in sight, going our way, the slack of the rope 
was hauled forward and the bight carried under a pulley fixed 
in a stanchion alongside the boiler, below the safety-valve, running 
thence up and over the upper pulley as before — but with all the 
difference in the world, for with the fifty-pound anvil hanging 
to the end of the line thus reversed in its leverage, the boilers 
might have blown up a hundred times before the safety-valve 
would have acted. 

I have often heard the signal which Billy had agreed upon 
with his fireman on the port side, and have seen the darky slip 
the line under the lower pulley, and then keep one eye on the 
boiler-deck companionway, watching for the captain. Should he 
be seen coming below, the line was as quickly slipped off the lower 
pulley and restored to its normal position ; sometimes with a con- 
current "blowing off" through the safety-valve, which was evidence 
enough for the captain, although he might not catch Billy in the 
act. It is no more than just to say that the visits of the captain 
below decks were not frequent. He was a New Orleans man, of 
French extraction, with a fine sense of honor which forbade any 
espionage of this nature, unless there seemed to be an especially 
flagrant case of steam-carrying on the part of his junior engineer. 

Billy had another device which greatly galled the captain, 
and later it was the cause of a serious affair. The captain 
had a private servitor, a colored man who cared for his rooms 



48 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

in the "Texas", served his lunches there, and ran errands about 
the boat as required. The captain used to send him down to the 
engine-room when he suspected Hamilton was carrying more 
steam than was nominated in the license, to look at the gauge 
and take readings. 

It was not long before Hamilton became aware of this 
surreptitious reading, and set himself to work to defeat it without 
the necessity of ordering the captain's man out of the engine- 
room. To this end he made a cap of sheet lead which covered 
the face of the dial, leaving only about two inches in the centre, 
showing the pivot and a small portion of the pointer. This 
balked the colored messenger completely, as he could not see the 
figures, and he was not well enough acquainted with the instru- 
ment to read it from the centre. On his last visit to the engine- 
room, Hamilton saw him coming. Pretending that he was going 
forward to try the water, but keeping his eye on the messenger, 
he saw him reach up and take of¥ the cap. In an instant Ham- 
ilton turned and threw his shaping hammer, which he had in his 
hand, with such true aim that it struck the poor darky in the 
head and knocked him senseless. As he dropped to the deck 
Hamilton called one of his firemen, telling him to give his 
compliments to Captain Faucette and tell him to send some men 
and take away his (profanely described) nigger, as he had no 
use for him. The darky pulled through all right, I think. 
He was put ashore at the first landing and placed under the care 
of a doctor, and Hamilton paid his bills. His successor never 
came into the engine-room, and the cap on the steam gauge was 
laid aside as unnecessary. 

Whenever the mate had a "shindy" with the crew, which 
was composed of forty Irishmen, all the other officers of the boat 
were bound to "stand by" for trouble. Hamilton was always 
ready, if not anxious, for such occasions, and he and Billy Wilson, 
the mate, always supported each other so effectively that many an 
incipient mutiny was quickly quelled, the two jumping into a 
crowd and hitting every head in sight with whatever weapon 
happened to be at hand until order was restored. Usually, how- 
ever, it was with bare hands, and the show which authority always 
makes in face of insubordination. 

At times, Billy's vagaries were of a grisly and gruesome 



THE ENGINEER 49 



character. I recall that at Point Douglass, on one of our trips, 
we found a "floater" (body of a drowned man) that had been 
in the water until it was impossible to handle it. To get it on 
shore it was necessary to slide a board beneath, and draw out 
board and body together. It was a malodorous and ghastly under- 
taking. Something said to this efifect, Hamilton laughed at as 
being altogether too finicky for steamboatmen. To demonstrate 
that it need not affect either one's sensibilities or stomach, he 
stepped into the cook's galley for a sandwich, and sitting down on 
the end of the board, alongside the corpse, ate his lunch without 
a qualm. 

Another and rather more amusing incident took place while 
the 'Tanny Harris" was in winter quarters at Prescott. The 
night before St. Patrick's day, Billy made up an effigy, which he 
hung between the smokestacks. As the manikin had a clay pipe 
in its mouth and a string of potatoes about its neck, it might have 
reference to the patron saint of the Old Sod. The loyal Irishmen 
of the town so interpreted it at least, and Billy had to stand 
off the crowd for several hours with a shot gun, and finally get 
the town marshal to guard the boat while he climbed up and 
removed the obnoxious image. 

He had a little iron cannon which he fired on all holidays, 
and sometimes when there was no holiday; in the latter case, at 
about three o'clock in the morning, just to remind people living 
in the vicinity of the levee that he was still "on watch". In 
retaliation for the effigy affair, his Irish friends slipped aboard the 
boat one evening while he was away and spiked his cannon by driv- 
ing a rat-tail file into the vent ; this was after he had carefully load- 
ed it for a demonstration intended to come off the next morning. 
He discovered the trick when he attempted to fire the gun, and 
offered pertinent and forcible remarks, but unprintable in this 
narration. He lost no time in vain regrets, however. Lighting 
up his forge he made a screw and drew out the load. Then with 
the help of several chums he moved his forge to the bow of the 
boat (the foc'sle), rigged a crane so that he could swing his 
little cannon in a chain sling, from the capstan to the forge, 
and back again. When the time came for firing the salute he 
had his gun heated red-hot on the forge; it was then swung back 
on to the capstan-head, where it was lashed with a chain. A 



50 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

bucket of water was then thrown into the gun, and instantly a 
hardwood plug, made to fit, was driven home with his heavy 
striking hammer. In a minute the steam generated by this process 
caused an explosion that threw the plug almost across the river, 
fully a quarter of a mile, with a reasonably fair result in the way 
of noise. It was a risky piece of work, but "Billy" was in his 
element when there was a spice of risk mixed with his sports. 

Billy's humor was broad, but never malicious. He never 
missed an opportunity to play a practical joke on any one, save, 
perhaps, the captain himself. The deck hands who "soldiered" 
by sitting on the side of their bunks when they ought to be at 
work toting freight, were sometimes lifted several feet in the 
air by the insertion of two inches of a darning needle ingeniously 
attached to the under side of the board bench upon which they 
took their seat. It was operated from the engine-room by a fine 
wire and a stiff spring, the whole boxed in so securely by the 
carpenter that there was no possibility of its discovery by the 
enraged victim. 

He was one of the most open-handed and liberal of men 
in his givings, and in spite of his escapades a valuable officer. In 
1862 he left the boat, as did all the crew, to enlist under the 
call for three hundred thousand troops, made in July of that 
year. In all discussions of the war he had asserted his determi- 
nation to keep away from any place where there was shooting, 
as he was afraid of bullets of any size from an ounce up. As 
he was a Southern man, son of a slaveholder, we thought that 
this badinage was to cover his determination not to take any 
part in the war on the Union side; we never questioned his 
courage. He went into the navy as an acting assistant engineer, 
and was assigned to one of the "tin-clads" that Commodore 
Porter had improvised for service on the Mississippi and tribu- 
taries, and that did such heroic service in opening and keeping 
open the great river. Within a few months after his entry into 
the service, his old friends saw with pleasure, but not surprise, 
his name mentioned in general orders for gallantry in action. 
He had stood by his engine on the gunboat after a pipe had been 
cut by a shell from a Confederate shore battery, a number of men 
being killed and wounded, and the engine-room filled with escaping 
steam. Binding his coat over his face and mouth to prevent 



THE ENGINEER 51 



inhalation of the steam he handled his engines at the risk of his 
life, in response to the pilot's bells, until his boat was withdrawn 
from danger. It was in keeping with his known character; and 
his talk of being "afraid of guns" was only a part of the levity 
with which he treated all situations, grave or gay. 

I do not know Billy's ultimate fate. When he left the 
"Fanny Harris" for gunboat service, I also left to enlist in the 
infantry. After three years in the army I was mustered out in 
Washington, and soon went to New York where I remained for 
ten years or more. In the interim between 1862 and 1876, when 
I returned to the West, I completely lost sight of all my old 
river acquaintances. When, later, I made inquiries of those whom 
I did find, they either did not enlighten me as to his fate, or, if 
they did, I made so little note of it that it has escaped my memory. 



Chapter VI 

The '^Mud" Clerk^ — Comparative Honors 

The transition from the "main deck" to the "boiler deck" 
marked an era in my experience. It opened a new chapter in 
my river life, and one from which I have greatly profited. When 
I went upon the river I was about as bashful a boy as could 
be found; that had been my failing from infancy. As pantry boy 
I had little intercourse with the passengers, the duties of that 
department of river industry requiring only the washing, wiping, 
and general care of dishes and silverware. A "cub" engineer 
slipped up to his stateroom, and donned presentable clothing in 
which to eat his meals in the forward cabin, at the officers' table, 
where all save the captain and chief clerk took their meals. After 
that, his principal business was to keep out of sight as much as 
possible until it was time to "turn in". He was not an officer, 
and passengers were not striving for his acquaintance. 

As second clerk all these conditions were changed. In the 
absence of the chief clerk, his assistant took charge of the office, 
answered all questions of passengers, issued tickets for passage 
and staterooms, showed people about the boat, and in a hundred 
ways made himself agreeable, and so far as possible ministered to 
their comfort and happiness while on board. The reputation of 
a passenger boat depended greatly upon the esteem in which the 
captain, clerks, and pilots were held by the travelling public. The 
.fame of such a crew was passed along from one tourist to 
another, until the gentle accomplishments of a boat's personnel 
were as well known as their official qualifications. 



2 "Mud" Clerk : Second clerk, whose duty it was to go out in all 
weathers, upon the unpaved levees and deliver or receive freight. As 
the levees were usually muddy in rainy weather, the name became 
descriptive of the work and condition of the second clerk. 



THE "MUD" CLERK 55 

Captain William Faucette was, as I have said, of French 
Creole stock, from New Orleans. In addition to being a good 
and capable officer on the roof, he was also highly endowed with 
the graces that commended him to the ladies and gentlemen who 
took passage with him. Polite in his address, a fine dancer, a 
good story-teller and conversationist, his personality went far 
toward attracting the public who travelled for pleasure — and 
that was the best-paying traffic, for which every first-class packet 
was bidding. 

Charles Hargus, chief clerk, was not far behind his chief in 
winning qualities. An educated man, he was also possessed of the 
address and the other personal qualities which were necessary 
to equip one for becoming a successful officer on a Mississippi 
passenger steamer. 

Such was the atmosphere into which the oily "cub" from the 
engine-room was ushered, when drafted into this service because 
of the serious illness of the second clerk. It was too late to get 
a man from the city, and the necessities of the case required an 
immediate filling of the vacancy. I was invited, or rather com- 
manded, to go into the office for the trip, and do what I could 
to help out with the work until the return to Galena, where a 
man or boy could be found to fill the office until the sick officer 
returned. 

The boat was guard-deep with freight, and at night the 
cabin was carpeted with passengers sleeping on mattresses spread 
on the floor. The chief clerk simply had to have somebody to 
help out. On my part, it was the chance of my life. Without 
much prior business experience, what little I had was right in 
line. I had checked freight on the levee for the firm of L. H. 
Merrick & Co., was a good penman, fairly good at figures, and 
had made out freight bills in the transfer of freight at Prescott, 
which fact was known to the chief clerk. It is needless to add 
that I required no second order. While second clerks were not 
likely to get any shore leave at either end of the route, nor at any 
intermediate ports, it required no brilliancy of intellect to see that 
checking freight was comparatively cleaner than, and superlatively 
preferable to, boiler-scaling. 

Regarding my success in this new field, suffice it to say that 
the trip to St. Paul and return was made, and the freight checked 



56 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

out with surprisingly few errors for a beginner. The cargo of 
wheat, potatoes, etc., was correctly counted in, properly entered 
in the books, and correctly checked out at Prairie du Chien and 
Dunleith. The sick clerk did not rejoin the boat. The temporary 
appointment by the captain and chief clerk was made permanent 
by the secretary of the company at Dunleith, Mr. Blanchard, on 
the recommendation of Mr. Hargus, my chief. We ran into 
Galena on our regular Thursday afternoon time, and instead of 
creeping into a steaming, muddy boiler, I walked out on to the 
levee and was introduced to the great wholesalers who at that time 
made Galena their headquarters, as "Mr. Merrick, our new second 
clerk", and the work of loading for a new trip was taken up. 

While the office of second clerk was a decided promotion from 
my point of view, it was not so esteemed on the river. Leaving 
the engine-room was leaving the opportunity to learn the profession 
of engineering. Once learned, it was then assumed that the 
person so equipped was guaranteed employment so long as he 
willed, with a minimum amount of competition. Later develop- 
ments revealed the fallacy of this conception. Within ten years 
thereafter, steamboating was practically dead on the upper Mis- 
sissippi. The completion of one or more railroads into St. Paul, 
ended the river monopoly. Thereafter a dozen steamboats did 
the business formerly requiring a hundred. The wages of engi- 
neers and pilots dropped to a figure undreamed of in the flush 
times between 1850 and i860; there were twenty men competing 
for every berth upon the river. 

My new berth was not silk-lined, however. There was an 
aristocracy in the official family above decks. The captain and 
the chief clerk represented the first class, and the mate and the 
second clerk the other. The line between these was represented 
by the watches into which all officers on the boat were divided for 
rounds of duty. The captain and his mate, and the chief clerk 
and his second stood watch and watch during the twenty-four hours 
(that is, six hours on and six hours off) all the season. The pilots 
and engineers interposed a "dog watch", to break the monotony. 
The captain and the chief clerk went on watch after breakfast, at 
seven in the morning, and stood until noon. At twelve o'clock they 
were relieved by the mate and the second clerk, who ran the steam- 
boat and the business until six o'clock in the evening, when they 



THE "MUD" CLERK 57 

were relieved. After supper, they turned in until midnight, when 
they were called and relieved the captain and the chief clerk, who 
retired and slept until morning. While each class of officers was 
on duty the same number of hours each day, the difference lay in 
the fact that the junior officers were compelled by this arrangement 
to turn out at midnight throughout the season. It was this turn- 
ing out at midnight that made the mate's watch (the port watch) 
very undesirable so far as personal ease and comfort was concerned. 
A man can knock about until midnight very agreeably, after a short 
nap in the afternoon, provided he can have a sound sleep during 
the "dead hours" from midnight until six o'clock in the morning. 
To turn out at midnight every night and work until six is an 
entirely dififerent matter. 

The pilots and engineers on our boat — and so far as my 
experience went, on all boats — stood a "dog-watch" from four 
in the morning until seven, thus making five watches during the 
twenty-four hours, bringing the men of the two watches on duty 
alternately at midnight, and shortening the "dead hours" from 
midnight to four o'clock, and from four until seven, so that one 
did not get so "dead" tired and sleepy as he would in standing a 
watch beginning every night at midnight. 

It was believed on the river that more people die between 
midnight and morning than during any other six hours in the 
twenty-four. I think that I have heard physicians confirm this. 
My own experience in going on watch at midnight continuously 
during six months is, that there is less vitality and ambition avail- 
able in that period than in any other. In fact, I have no distinct 
recollection that there was any ambition at all mixed up in the 
process of writing up delivery books, checking out freight, measur- 
ing wood, and performing the hundred other duties that fell to 
the lot of the officer on watch, when done in the depressing atmos- 
phere of early morning. It was a matter of duty, unmixed with 
higher motives. 

It was not only the turning out at unholy hours, that differen- 
tiated between first and second clerk. The second clerk must have 
his delivery book written up for all the landings to be made during 
his off-watch. The chief clerk then made the delivery from the 
book, upon which the receipts were taken. If, during the second 
clerk's off-watch, there was a particularly large manifest for any 



58 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

landing, the assistant was called to attend to the delivery, after 
which he could turn in again, if he chose. Of course it took a 
river man but a moment to go to sleep after touching his bunk; 
but his rest was broken, and in the course of the season this began 
to tell on everj7 one. Under the stress of it, men became hollow- 
eyed and lost flesh and strength. 

When on watch, the second clerk not only attended to his 
own particular duties, but he also assumed for the time those of 
the chief clerk. He collected fares from passengers coming aboard 
during his watch ; assigned rooms, provided there were any left to 
assign, or a mattress on the cabin floor if there chanced to be any 
space left on the floor, whereon to place another mattress ; collected 
freight bills, paid for wood or coal, and performed any other duties 
ordinarily performed by the chief clerk when on watch. It was 
not considered good form to call the chief clerk during his off- 
watch; in fact, to do so would be a confession of ignorance or 
inability, which no self-respecting second clerk cared to exhibit, and 
but rarely did. Many the close conference with the chief mate, his 
companion as well as superior during the long night watches; and 
many the smiles evoked in after days when recalling the well-meant 
but somewhat impracticable advice tendered upon some such occa- 
sions by the good-hearted autocrat of the "roof" and fo' castle. 



Chapter VII 

Wooding Up 

As second clerk, I was early taught to hold my own with the 
pirates who conducted the woodyards scattered along the river, 
from which the greater part of the fuel used on old-time river 
boats was purchased. There was a great variety of wood offered 
for sale, and a greater diversity in the manner of piling it. It was 
usually ranked eight feet high, with a "cob-house" at each end of 
the rank. It was the rule on the river to measure but one of the 
end piles, if the whole rank was taken, or one-half of one end pile 
if but a part of the rank was bought. For convenience, the wood- 
men usually put twenty cords in a rank, and allowed enough to 
cover the shortage caused by cross-piling at the ends. Being piled 
eight feet high, ten lengths of the measuring stick (eight feet 
long) equalled twenty cords, if it were fairly piled. Woodmen 
who cared for their reputation and avoided a "scrap" with the 
clerks, captains, and mates of steamboats, usually made their 
twenty-cord ranks eighty-four feet long and eight feet high. Such 
dealers also piled their sticks parallel to each other in the ranks ; 
they also threw out the rotten and very crooked ones. When the 
clerk looked over such a tier, after having run his stick over it, 
he simply invited the owner aboard and paid him his fifty or sixty 
dollars, according to the quality of the wood, took him across the 
cabin to the bar, and invited him to "have one on the boat", shook 
hands, and bade him good night. 

It took the "pirates" to start the music, however. When only 
scant eighty feet were found in the rank, with rotten and green 
wood sandwiched in, all through the tiers, and crooked limbs and 
crossed sticks in all directions, it became the duty of the clerk to 
estimate his discount. After running his rod over it, he would 
announce, before the first stick was taken off by the deck hands. 



6o THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

the amount of wood in the rank — nineteen and a half cords, 
nineteen cords, eighteen and a half cords, or in extreme cases only 
eighteen. When the mate could stand behind the rank and see, 
through a cross-piled hole, more than half the length of the steam- 
boat, it was deemed a rather acute case, calling for the eighteen- 
cord decision. When this decision was made and announced, it 
was, on our boat at least, always adhered to. We always took 
wood some time before our visible supply was exhausted, in order 
to meet just such emergencies. The owner might, and usually did, 
damn everybody and everything connected with the craft in the 
most lurid terms. But the one question he had to answer, and 
answer quickly, was: "Will jou take it?" If "No", the bell was 
struck and the boat backed off, while the woodman and roustabouts 
exchanged a blue-streaked volley of vituperation. If, on the other 
hand, a sale was made, the owner usually took his money and the 
inevitable drink at the bar, and then went down to the main deck 
and had it out with the mate, who was always a match, and more 
than a match, for any merely local and provincial orator. His 
vocabulary was enriched with contributions from all ports between 
St. Louis and St. Paul, while that of the squatter was lacking in 
the elements of diversity necessary to give depth and breadth to 
the discussion. 

It would be unjust to class all woodyard men w4th squatters 
like the foregoing specimens, of whom there were hundreds scat- 
tered along the islands and lowlands bordering the river, cutting 
wood on government land, and moving along whenever the federal 
officers got on their trail. On the mainland were many settlers, 
opening up farms along the river, and the chance to realize ready 
money from the sale of wood was not to be neglected. In many 
places chutes had been built of heavy planks, descending from the 
top of the bluff, from one to two hundred feet above the river. 
The upland oak, cut into four-foot lengths, was shot down to the 
water's edge, where a level space was found to rank it up. These 
men were honest, almost without exception, and their wood always 
measured true. The upland wood was vastly superior to the 
lowland growth ; steamboat captains not only paid the highest price 
for it, but further endeavored to contract for all the wood at 
certain yards. I remember one, run by a Mr. Smith, between 
Prescott and Diamond Bluff, and another near Clayton, Iowa, 



WOODING UP 



that always furnished the best dry oak wood, and gave full 
measure. 

It was at the latter place that I nearly lost my berth, through 
a difference with the "Old Man" — the captain. I had measured 
the rank and announced the amount of wood as twenty cords. 
The captain was on deck at the time, and watching the measure- 
ment. When the announcement was made he ordered the wood 
remeasured. I went over it carefully, measuring from the centre 
of the cross-pile at one end to the centre of the cross-pile at the 
other end of the rank, and again reported "twenty cords". Cap- 
tain Faucette called down to "measure it again", with an inflection 
plainly intimating that I was to discount it, adding, "You meas- 
ured both ends." The rank was full height, closely piled, and 
the best of split white oak, and I had already taken out one of the 
ends; further, I had already twice reported twenty cords in the 
hearing of all the crew and many passengers, who were now 
giving their undivided attention to this affair. I therefore did not 
feel like stultifying myself for the sake of stealing a cord or two 
of wood, and replied that I had already measured it twice, and 
that I had not measured both ends of the rank. The "Old Man" 
flew into a rage and ordered me to go to the office and get my 
money, and he would find a man who knew how to measure wood. 
There being nothing for it but to obey an order of this kind, I 
went aboard, hung up my measuring stick in its beckets, and 
reported at the office for my money. Mr. Hargus, my chief, was 
astonished, and asked for an explanation, which I gave him. He 
rushed out to the woodpile with the rod, ran over it in a flash, 
and reported to the captain on the roof, "Twenty cords, sir!" and 
came back to the office. He told me to go on with my work and 
say nothing, which I was ready enough to do. In the meantime, 
the crew were toting the wood aboard. 

When the boat backed off, the captain sent for Mr. Hargus 
to meet him in his private room in the "Texas", where they had 
it out in approved style. Hargus only replied to Captain Faucette 
that if Merrick was discharged he would also take his pay and 
go ashore with him. Faucette was a new man in the line, from 
the far South, and a comparative stranger, while Hargus was a 
veteran with the company, a stockholder in the line, and backed 
by all the Dubuque stockholders, as well as by the officers and 



62 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

directors of the company; so the captain thought better of it and 
dropped the whole matter, never deigning to speak to the second 
clerk, either in way of apology, which was not expected, or of 
caution "not to let it occur again", which would have been an 
insult. The affair was "dropped overboard", as Hargus said, 
and the wood-measuring was thereafter left to the proper officer, 
without comment or interference. 

With a crew of forty men looking on and hearing the whole 
colloquy, a change in the amount of wood reported at the sug- 
gestion of the captain, would have simply wiped out any respect 
they may have had for the authority of the boy officer; and his 
usefulness on that boat, if not on the river, would have ended then 
and there. It was one of the unwTitten rules of the service that 
the officers were to stand by each other in every way; there was 
to be no interference while on duty, and each was held responsible 
for such duty. If there was cause for reprimand it was to be 
administered in the privacy of the captain's office, and not in the 
presence of the whole crew. It was not desirable to have either 
office or officer held in contempt. 

As the steamboat business developed, and as immigration into 
the new Territory of Minnesota increased, there was necessity for 
getting as many trips into a season as possible. This led to the 
adoption of every device that might lessen the running time of 
steamers between the lower ports and St, Paul, Not the least 
of these innovations was the use of the wood-boat for the more 
ready transfer of fuel from the bank to the deck of the steamer. 
Flatboats, or scows, capable of carrying twenty cords of wood, 
and even forty, were loaded at the woodyards in readiness for the 
expected steamer. As the wood was worth more loaded in the 
scow, a higher price was given by steamboatmen, and contracts 
were made ahead; the date of arrival of the boat was determined, 
and the wood-boat was in readiness, day or night, with two men 
on board. It was the work of a few minutes only to run alongside, 
make fast the towlines, and while the steamer was on her way up 
river, thirty or forty men pitched or carried the wood aboard. 

Ordinarily, the wood-boat was not in tow more than half an 
hour, which would take her five or six miles up river. When the 
wood was out, the towlines were cast off, a large sweep or steering 
oar was shipped up at each end of the scow, and it drifted back 



WOODING UP 63 



to be reloaded for the next customer. The steamboat, meanwhile, 
had lost practically no time in wooding, as the tow was so light 
as but slightly to impede her speed. The greatest danger in the 
transaction was that the great packet might swamp the scow by 
running at too great speed, towing her under by the head, as some- 
times occurred. To avoid this contingency the wood was always 
taken first from the bow of the flatboat. As it was only the fast 
packets that patronized the wood-boats, this danger of towing under 
was always present, and the pilots were always very careful in the 
handling of their boats at such times. Flats were seldom towed 
downstream, for the reason that there was no way of getting them 
back, except to pay for a tow. And again, the packets were not 
in so much of a hurry when going down river, for then they had 
but few passengers to feed, and no fast freight. 



Chapter VIII 

The Mate 

In writing of life on the main deck of a Mississippi River 
steamboat fifty years ago, a prefatory note may be in order. The 
reader must bear in mind that times have changed ; and men, in 
the mass, have changed, and that for the better, in the years that 
have elapsed between i860 and 1 908. Slavery then held sw^ay 
on the west bank of the river, from the Iowa line to the Gulf. 
On the east side in the State of Illinois even, the slavery idea 
predominated ; and on the river there was no "other side" to the 
question. Slavery was an "institution", as much to be observed and 
venerated as any institution of the country. A black man was a 
"nigger", and nothing more. If he were the personal property 
of a white man in St. Louis, or below, he was worth from eight 
hundred to fifteen hundred dollars, and was therefore too valuable 
to be utilized in the make-up of a boat's crew running north. 
The inclemency of the weather, or the strenuousness of the mate, 
might result in serious physical deterioration that would greatly 
depreciate him as a chattel, to say nothing of the opportunities 
offered him by the northern trip to escape to Canada, and thus 
prove a total loss. 

Of free negroes there were not enough to man the hundreds 
of steamboats plying on the upper river. Thus it came about 
that the cabin crews on some boats, and the firemen on others, were 
colored, while the deck crews (roustabouts and stevedores) were 
white. So marked was this division of labor that it came to pass 
that no "nigger" was permitted by the white rousters to handle 
any freight, on any boat. The modern unions take no greater 
exception to a non-union workman than the white deck hands 
then expressed for a "nigger" as a freight handler. 

Another class distinction was, that nine-tenths of the deck 



THE MATE 65 



crew were Irishmen. In that day the poorer sort of that nation- 
ality were the burden-bearers of this country. They dug the 
ditches, built the railroad embankments, and toted the freight on 
the river. Since that time they have wonderfully developed; in 
the present day, very few even of the emigrants handle pick and 
shovel, and none handle freight as river deck hands. They are 
the trainmen and policemen of the country, and their sons are our 
mayors and aldermen, our judges and law-makers. The dirt- 
handling on the railroads is passed on to the Italians and the Huns, 
while the river freight-handling, what little there is of it, is done 
by the lower class of negroes. The abolition of slavery has 
prodigiously increased their numbers, as well as amazingly cheap- 
ening them in value. All this has relevancy in describing an 
old-time mate and his work. 

There was a fellow feeling between the chief mate and the 
second clerk. For one thing, they were both in the second rank, 
officially, although that did not count for a great deal, I think, 
as neither of them thought of it in just that way. My recollection 
is, that both of them thought of it from the other point of view 
— they were over so many men, and in command of so many 
things and situations, rather than under the captain and the chief 
clerk. You will observe at once that this put an entirely different 
construction upon the question ; and this was, after all, the only 
reasonable and practical view to take of it, and the one that came 
nearest to meeting all the conditions. In fact, no other view of the 
situation could be taken. When the captain and the chief clerk 
were off duty and asleep in their staterooms, or even off duty and 
awake, loitering about the boat, the responsibility was immediately 
shifted to their subordinates. Even though the captain might be 
sitting in the door of his room in the forward end of the "Texas", 
while the mate stood at the bell to make a landing, the amenities 
and traditions of river life put him out of the game as completely 
as though he were asleep in his berth. The same also was true 
of the chief clerk and his subordinate. The chief might be smok- 
ing his after-dinner cigar within ten feet of the office, or he might 
walk out on the levee and talk with the agent; but until asked, 
he never took any part in the distinctive business transactions of 
his subordinate, or in any way interfered with his manner of trans- 
acting the business. He might, later, if necessary, make sugges- 



66 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

tions looking to the betterment of the methods of his second ; but 
that would be a purely personal, rather than an official, utterance. 

It followed, therefore, that my acquaintance with Billy Wilson 
was much closer than with the captain; and standing watch with 
him day after day and night after night during a long season's 
run, I came to know him intimately. He was born in Pennsyl- 
vania, the son of a "Pennsylvania Dutchman." Beginning his 
professional life on the Allegheny River, he worked down the 
Ohio, and when the great boom in upper Mississippi traffic began 
in 1854, engaged in that trade. A smooth-shaven, red-faced man, 
about five feet eight inches in height, he weighed probably a 
hundred and sixty pounds. Occasionally he took a drink of 
whiskey, as did all river men, but it was seldom. He was well 
read, and ordinarily, a very quiet man, therefore all the more to 
be feared and respected. He would hardly fill the bill as a 
traditional Mississippi River steamboat mate; and were his proto- 
type shown on the stage it would be voted slow, uninteresting, 
and untrue to type. 

In the beginning of this chapter I endeavored to indicate what 
manner of men composed our deck crew. Ours numbered forty 
men. Almost without exception they were Irishmen of the lowest 
class, picked up alongshore at St. Louis, Galena, Dubuque, and 
St. Paul, from the rif^raf^ of the levee. They would get drunk 
whenever they could get whiskey; and as the boat carried hundreds 
of barrels of this liquor each trip, it required eternal vigilance on 
the part of the mates and watchmen to prevent the crew broaching 
a barrel and getting fighting drunk and mutinous. When this 
happened, as now and then it did in spite of all precautions, Billy 
Wilson was turned in an instant from a quiet Pennsylvania Dutch- 
man into a dangerous, if not devilish, driver. He carried, on 
most occasions, a paddle made from a pork barrel stave. This had 
a handle at one end, and the other, shaped something like a canoe 
paddle, was bored full of quarter-inch holes. When the case was 
one of mere sluggishness on the part of one of the hands, a light 
tap with the flat part of this instrument was enough to inspire 
activity. When the case was one of moroseness or incipient 
mutiny, the same flat side, applied by his powerful muscles, with 
a quick, sharp stroke, would leave a blood-blister for every hole 
in the paddle; and when a drunken riot was to be dealt with, the 



THE MATE 69 



sharp edge of the paddle on a man's head left nothing more to be 
done with that man until he "came to." With a revolver in his 
left hand and his paddle in his right, he would jump into the 
middle of a gang of drunken, mutinous men, and striking right 
and left would intimidate or disable the crowd in less time than 
it takes to tell it. He never used his pistol, and to my knowledge 
never called for assistance, although that was ready if required, 
for all officers were usually at hand and ready in case of necessity. 

In a row that took place at Prairie du Chien one night, when 
the men had sent up town and smuggled in a jug of whiskey, one 
man who was hit on the head by the paddle went overboard on the 
upstream side of the boat. He was instantly sucked under by the 
swift current, and was never seen again. The coroner's jury in 
the case brought in a verdict of "accidental death", and Wilson 
came back to work after a week's sojourn with the sherifF, having 
won an added prestige that rendered less necessary the use of the 
paddle. 

Ordinarily his commands were given in a low tone of voice, 
unaccompanied with the profanity which legend and story con- 
sidered due from the man and his office. When things went 
wrong, however, the wide range and profundity of his language 
was a revelation to the passengers who might chance to be within 
ear-shot. I recall an outbreak, one April morning at about four 
o'clock, at a woodyard, between Trempealeau and Winona. He 
had called, "All hands, wood up !" It was a cold and rainy night, 
and many of the men had crawled in under the boilers to dry their 
clothes and seek sleep. After the first round or two, he found 
that ten or fifteen men were missing — they were "soldiering." 
He went aft and ransacked the bunks without finding the truants. 
He then dove under the boilers with his paddle, striking in the 
dark, and feeling for some one to hit, at the same time pouring out 
a torrent of profanity that in ordinary walks of life, would be 
called monumental, but which in the more exacting conditions of 
river life, probably was not above medium grade. The next count 
found every man in line, toting his share of the wood. 

It may be and was asked by Eastern people, unused to river 
life, "Why do the men submit to such treatment? Why do they 
not throw the mate into the river?" The answer is, caste. They 
were used to being driven, and expected nothing else, and nothing 



70 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

better, and they would not work under any other form of authority. 
As I stated at the beginning, they were of the very lowest class. 
No self-respecting man would ship as a deck hand under the then 
existing conditions. One might now travel long and look in vain 
for a white crew driven as these men then were. Their places 
have been taken by the freed negro; he to-day is being driven as 
his white predecessors were then. 

There is this distinction, however; now, most of the drivers 
are Irishmen — the mates and watchmen on the river steamers. 
Then an Irishman was of little service as a mate. Those officers 
were, as a rule, Yankees or Southerners or Pennsylvania Dutch- 
men. We had for a time a second mate. Con Shovelin, an Irish- 
man, as you might suspect from his name. He was six feet high, 
and big in every way, including his voice. He roared and swore 
at the crew all the time, but put very little spirit into them. A 
look out of the corner of Wilson's eye, and a politely worded 
request that they "Get a hump, now!" was worth a volume of 
Shovelin's exordiums. At that time an Irishman could not handle 
an Irish crew; now, he can handle a crew of free negroes with 
the expenditure of one-half the wind and oratory. If you wish 
to see for yourself, take a trip on the river to St. Louis and return, 
and see the Celt driving the Ethiopian, even as the Saxon drove 
the Celt, fifty years ago. 



Chapter IX 

The ''Old Man" 

It would be interesting to trace the origin of this term, which 
is universall}' applied to the captain in nautical circles, either on 
shipboard, among deep-sea sailors, on the great lakes, or on the 
inland waters. He may not be half as old as the speaker; still, 
in speaking of him, not to him, he is the "old man." It is used 
in no disrespectful sense; indeed, it is rather an endearing term. 
In speaking to him, however, it is always Captain, or Sir. But 
in detailing what the Captain has said or done the narrator says 
that the "old man" says so, or is about to do so, and his auditors, 
if river men, know of but one "old man" aboard the boat, although 
the steamer may be freighted with octogenarians. 

The captain usually reaches the "roof" from one of two 
directions, either going up from mate, or coming down from the 
pilot house. Occasionally he emerges from the clerk's office, or 
from the engine-room; but the line of promotion is usually drawn 
from mate or pilot to captain, these being also the normal lines 
of education for that post. Perhaps the greater number of cap- 
tains serving on the river in the early days, down to i860, began 
their careers on the river as pilots, very often combining the tvvo 
offices in one person. 

The captain's official requirements are not altogether ornate. 
It is true that he must have sufficient polish to commend himself 
to his passengers. That is essential in popularizing his boat; but 
in addition he must thoroughly know a steamboat, from stem to 
stern, and know what is essential to its safety, the comfort of his 
passengers, and the financial satisfaction of its owners. Nearly 
every old-time captain on the river could, in case of necessity, 
pilot his boat from St. Paul to Galena. Every captain could, and 
of necessity did, handle the deck crew, with the second mate as go- 



72 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

between, during the captain's watch on deck. Some few might 
have gone into the engine-room and taken charge of the machinery, 
but these were exceptional cases. All were supposed to know 
enough about the business of the office to enable them to determine 
between profit and loss in the running of the steamer. 

After leaving port, the captain on the river was as autocratic 
as his compeer on the ocean. He might without notice discharge 
and order ashore any officer or man on board, and he could fill 
vacancies en route to any extent; but these appointments were 
subject to the approval of the owner or manager on arrival at the 
home port. Many, if not most, of the captains owned interests 
in the boats which they commanded. Many were sole owners, in 
which case they were amenable to no one for their actions, except 
to the civil authorities in case of legal technicalities, or to the 
unwritten laws of the service, which custom had made binding 
upon all. Such, for instance, was the rule that the captain was 
not to interfere with the pilots in the running of his boat, even if 
he might know, or think he knew, better than they the proper 
course to take in certain cases, or under certain conditions; even 
though he might himself have a pilot's license hanging in his 
stateroom. Neither was it considered good form to interfere with 
the duties of his mate, or the engineers, or the chief clerk, in the 
way of countermanding their orders when given in the line of 
duty. He might call them to account in his office, and not only 
caution, but command them not to repeat the error. Only in cases 
where such interference was necessary for the safety of the boat 
was it deemed permissible; and a captain who so far forgot himself 
as to interfere, lost caste among all classes of rivermen, high and 
low. Nevertheless, the "old man" had supreme power, and had 
the authority to interpose his veto on any command or any action, 
by any of his officers or men. This supremacy threw the burden 
of responsibility upon his shoulders, and set him apart as a man 
by himself. 

The seat of power was in the forward part of the "Texas", 
where a commodious and handsomelj-furnished cabin served as 
office, audience-room, sitting-room, and whenever he so willed, as 
dining-room. Connected with it was a sleeping apartment, larger 
and better furnished than the ordinary staterooms in the passenger 
cabin. From the windows on the front and on tw^o sides of his 



THE "OLD MAN" 73 

sitting-room he could look out ahead, or on either side, and see 
everything that was going on. It was here that he entertained 
favored guests when in relaxation, or hetcheled contumacious offi- 
cers when in tenser moods. 

From his berth, directly under the pilot house, he could read 
the sounds of shuffling feet as the man on watch danced from side 
to side of his wheel; he could note the sounds of the bell-pulls, as 
signals were rung in the engine-room ; and he could tell very nearly 
where the boat was at such times, and judge very cleverly as to the 
luck the pilot was having in running an ugly piece of river, or 
working out a crooked crossing. He could look out and see if his 
mate was asleep alongside the big bell, in the drowsy hours of 
the morning watch, if he cared to confirm a shrewd bet that the 
mate was asleep. He could tell by the roar of the forced draft 
in the tall chimneys in front of him, that there was another boat 
in sight, either ahead or behind, and that Billy Hamilton had the 
"blowers" on in response to a suggestion from Tommy Gushing, 
at the wheel, that an excess of steam was desirable, and that at 
once. This last was a perennial, or nocturnal, source of annoy- 
ance to our "Old Man", and one that wrung from him more pro- 
tests than any other shortcoming under his command. It burned 
out more wood than was justified by the end attained; but what 
was of more serious import, it suggested the carrying of a greater 
head of steam than was consonant with perfect safety. At a time 
when boiler explosions were not infrequent on the Western rivers, 
any suggestion of extra steam-carrying was sufficient to put the 
"old man" on the alert ; and this led to more interference with his 
officers than any other cause that came under my observation 
during my brief experience on the river. A scantily-clad appari- 
tion would appear on deck forward of the "Texas", and a request, 
"Mr. Gushing, please ask Mr. Hamilton to cut off the blowers", 
would be passed down the speaking tube to the engine-room. 
While it always came in the form of request, it carried with it 
the force of command — until it was concluded that the "old 
man" was again asleep, when the blowers were cautiously and 
gradually reopened. 

While it was not always expected that the captain should take 
the place of the engineer or pilot, it was required that he should 
be thoroughly acquainted with the handling of a steamboat under 



74 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

all circumstances. He must be a man possessed of nerve and 
courage, quick to see what was required, and as quick to give the 
necessary commands to his crew. As on deeper water, the code of 
honor on the river held that the captain must be the last to leave 
his sinking or burning boat; and many a brave commander has 
gone down to honorable death while upholding this code. In case 
of fire he must, with the pilot, instantly decide where lay the 
greatest chances of safety in beaching his boat. In case of snag- 
ging, or being cut down by ice, it is his first duty to save his boat, 
if possible, by stopping the break, at the same time providing for 
the safety of his passengers by beaching her on the nearest sand-bar. 
In case of grounding — "getting stuck on a sand-bar", as it is 
popularly known — all his knowledge of every expedient to extri- 
cate his vessel known to river men is called in play at once. An 
hour's time, or even a few minutes, lost in trying cheap experi- 
ments, is sufficient to pile up the shifting sands about the hull to 
such an extent as sometimes to consume days, or even weeks, in 
getting free. 

Our own boat, the "Fanny Harris", drifted upon a submerged 
bank on the lower side of the cut-off between Fevre River and 
Harris Slough, with a falling river. She did not get off that day, 
and within three days had less than a foot of water under some 
parts of her hull. Her freight had to be lightered, and then it 
took two steamboats, pulling on quadruple tackles, "luffed" to- 
gether, to pull her into deep water. The power applied would 
have pulled her in two, had it come from opposite directions. 

"Sparring off" vv^as a science in itself. Just how to place 
your spars; in what direction to shove the bow of the boat; or 
whether to "walk her over" by setting the spars at a "fore and 
aft" angle, one on each side, and thus push the boat straight ahead 
— these were questions to be answered as soon as reports were 
received from the pilot who was sent out in the yawl to sound the 
whole bar. To a landsman, the use to w^hich were to be put the 
great sticks of straight-grained, flawless yellow (or Norway) pine, 
standing on either side of the gangway, was quite unknown until 
the boat brought up on the sandy bottom of the river. Then, if 
it was the first time these timbers had been called into play that 
season, the lashings were cut away with a sharp axe; the detail 
from the crew sent to the roof eased away on the falls, until the 



THE "OLD MAN" 75 

derricks leaned forward at an angle of forty-five degrees. The 
crew on the forecastle overhauled the great four-by-five, or five- 
by-six ply falls, and hooked the lower block into the iron ring 
under the steamer's quarter, just above the load-line. This ring 
was attached to the hull by massive bolts, extending through several 
feet of timbers on the inside of the sheathing — the timbers run- 
ning back the length of the hull, in well-built boats, so that with 
sufficiently solid footing for the spars, and with sufficient power, 
the steamer might be lifted bodily off the bar, without "hogging" 
the boat — the technical term for bending or breaking the hull 
out of shape. 

When it was decided by a conference of the captain, the 
pilots, and the mate, or by the captain's judgment alone, in what 
direction the bow of the boat was to be thrown, the foot of the 
spar was shoved clear of the guards and lowered away by the 
derrick-fall until its foot was firmly fixed, and the spar at the 
proper angle, and in the proper direction. The hauling part of 
the tackle (or fall, as it is called) was then passed through a 
snatch-block and carried to the capstan, around the barrel of which 
six or seven turns were taken, and the best man in the crew given 
charge of the free end. If the case was a very bad one — if the 
boat was on hard — the double-purchase gear was put on the 
capstan, to give additional power, and steam was turned on the 
hoisting engine, (or "donkey") which also operated the capstan 
by a clutch gear. Ordinarily the boat quickly responded to all 
this application of power, was slowly pushed off the reef and 
headed for the channel, and the wheel was soon able to drive her 
ahead and away from the bar. 

This taking care of the free end of the tackle as it came from 
the capstan, was a work of more importance than might appear 
to the novice. The barrel of the capstan is concave; the line 
feeds on to it at the thickest part, either at the top or the bottom 
of the capstan. After it reaches a certain point all the turns must 
slip down to the narrowest part, and the work of winding upward 
begin over. The man who is handling the free end of the line 
must often slack a little — just enough to start the slipping — 
and then hold hard, so that it may go down easily, without giving 
any further slack. It looks easy, but it isn't. I have seen a care- 
less man give so much slack to his line, when there was a very 



76 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

heavy strain upon it — in fact when the whole weight of the 
forward end of the steamer was pendant upon the spar — that the 
recoil of the tackle, though not over an inch or two, would let the 
hull drop with a force that would almost shake the chimneys out 
of her, and could be felt the length of the boat. It was also a 
post of some danger, as I have heard of instances in which the 
recoil snapped the tackle, and severely injured the men under 
and about the spar and capstan. 

The spars are shod with heavy iron points about a foot in 
length, which would grip the solid clay or gravel underlying the 
superficial layers of sand forming the bar. When there was "no 
bottom" to the sand, and the applied power, instead of lifting the 
steamer only shoved the spar into the quicksand, another footing 
was used — a block built of two three-inch sections of oak about 
eighteen inches in diameter, bound and crossed with iron, and 
having a hole in the centre through which the iron point of the 
spar was passed until the shoulder rested on the block. This 
block could not be driven deeply into the sand, and usually gave a 
secure footing. A rope attached to a ring in the block served to 
haul it out of the sand after the spar was hoisted aboard. 

The spectacle afforded by the "sparring off" process was 
always one of great interest to the passengers, and of excitement 
to the officers and crew. There were drawbacks to this interest, 
however, when the passengers were in a hurry, and the boat lay 
for hours, sometimes for days, before being released, the crew work- 
ing day and night without sleep, and with little time even to eat. 
We once lay three days on Beef Slough bar; and the "War Eagle" 
was eight days on the same bar, having been caught on a falling 
river, being only released after passengers and freight were trans- 
ferred to other and lighter boats. 

For the officers and crew, there was no halo about an incident 
of this kind. In low water, it was to some boats of almost daily 
occurrence, somewhere on the river, even with the most skilful 
pilots. The fact was, that there were places where there was 
not enough water in the channel for a boat to pass without striking; 
and if one got out of the channel by ever so little, it was of course 
still worse. There were several places where it was to be expected 
that the boat must be hauled over the reef by taking out an anchor 
ahead, or by hauling on a line attached to a tree on the bank, if 



THE "OLD MAN" 77 

the channel ran near enough to render the latter expedient possible. 
I have injected this description of sparring off into the chapter 
devoted to the "Old Man", not because the process necessarily 
devolved upon him alone; but because as captain his will was law 
in any disputed point, and because upon him rested the responsi- 
bility of navigating his boat. He naturally took an active interest 
in the work, and was always on hand when it was done. But 
quite often the mate knew more of the finesse of poling a boat off 
a bar, than did the captain ; and some captains were shrewd enough 
to give the mate practically full control, only standing on the roof 
for appearance sake, while the latter did the work. It was, 
however, every man's work, and if any one had a practical idea, 
or a practical suggestion, whether pilot, engineer, mate, or car- 
penter, it was quickly put to the test. The main thing was to 
get off the bar, and to get off "quick." 



Chapter X 



The Pilots and Their Work 

We come now to the consideration of that part of river life 
of which I was an interested observer, rather than an active 
participant. Had not the great war burst upon the country, and 
the fever of railroad construction run so high, it is possible that I 
might have had my name enrolled in the list containing such 
masters of the profession as William Fisher, John King, Ed. West, 
Thomas Burns, Thomas Gushing, and a hundred others whose 
names were synonyms for courage, precision, coolness in danger, 
exact knowledge, ready resource, and all else necessary in the man 
who stood at the wheel and safely guided a great steamer through 
hundreds of miles of unlighted and uncharted river. 

Compared with those days, the piloting of to-day, while still 
a marvel to the uninitiated, is but a primer compared to the knowl- 
edge absolutely necessary to carry a steamboat safely through and 
around the reefs, bars, snags, and sunken wrecks which in the 
olden time beset the navigator from New Orleans to St. Paul. 
The pilot of that day was absolutely dependent upon his knowledge 
of and familiarity with the natural landmarks on either bank of 
the river, for guidance in working his way through and over the 
innumerable sand-bars and crossings. No lights on shore guided 
him by night, and no "diamond boards" gave him assurance by 
day. No ready search-light revealed the "marks" along the shore. 
Only a perspective of bluffs, sometimes miles away, showing dimly 
outlined against a leaden sky, guided the pilot in picking his way 
over a dangerous crossing, where there was often less than forty 
feet to spare on either side of the boat's hull, between safety and 
destruction. 

To "know the river" under those conditions meant to know 
absolutely the outline of every range of bluffs and hills, as well 



THE PILOTS AND THEIR WORK 79 

as every isolated knob or even tree-top. It meant that the man 
at the wheel must know these outlines absolutely, under the con- 
stantly changing point of view of the moving steamer; so that he 
might confidently point his steamer at a solid wall of blackness, 
and guided only by the shapes of distant hills, and by the mental 
picture which he had of them, know the exact moment at which 
to put his wheel over and sheer his boat away from an impending 
bank. To-day a thousand beacons are kindled every night to mark 
the dangerous or intricate crossings; by day, great white "diamond 
boards" spot the banks. At night the pilot has only to jingle a 
bell in the engine-room, the dynamo is started, and by pulling a 
line at either hand the search-light turns night into day, the big 
white board stands out in high relief against the leafy background, 
and the pilot heads for it, serene in the confidence that it is placed 
in line with the best water; for he knows that the government 
engineers have sounded every foot of the crossing within a date 
so recent as to make them cognizant of any change in its area 
or contour. Constantly patrolling the river, a dozen steamboats, 
fully equipped for sounding, measuring, and marking the channel, 
are in commission during the months of navigation, each being 
in charge of officers graduated from the most exacting military 
and technical school in the world, and having under them crews 
composed of men educated by practice to meet any emergency 
likely to arise. If a snag lodges in the channel it is reported at the 
nearest station, or to the first government steamer met, and within 
a few hours it is removed. Dams and shear-dykes direct the water 
in permanent, unshifting channels. Riprap holds dissolving banks, 
and overhanging trees are cut away. Millions of dollars have been 
spent in the work, and its preservation costs hundreds of thousands 
annually. All this outlay is to-day for the benefit of a scant score 
of steamboats between St. Louis and St. Paul. Forty years ago 
two hundred men, on a hundred boats, groped their way in dark- 
ness, amid known and unknown terrors, up and down the windings 
of the great river, without having for their guidance a single token 
of man's helpful invention. 

There are men now living who may see all this vast expend- 
iture utilized, as it is not now. The building of the inter-oceanic 
canal across the isthmus is certain to give new direction to the 
commerce of the world. It is fair to presume that the Mississippi 



8o THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

may again assert itself as one of the greatest arteries of commerce 
in the world, and that the products of the Minnesota and Dakota 
farms will find their way down the river to New Orleans, instead 
of across the continent to New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and 
Baltimore tidewater. If this effect does follow the building of 
the canal, as many clear-headed students of economic problems 
predict, the Mississippi will again assume its old-time standing and 
influence as a great highway of commerce. The hope is at least 
father to this thought. 

As already stated, my personal experience as a pilot was 
limited. It was confined to a few seasons' study of the river under 
one of the best men who ever turned a wheel upon it — Thomas 
Burns. By an agreement with him, I was to retain my clerkship, 
but was to spend as much as possible of my time in the pilot house, 
while on watch or off, either with himself or his partner, Thomas 
Gushing, steering for them in turn, and receiving instruction from 
both. Later I was to give all of my time, and after becoming 
proficient was to receive their recommendation for a license. I 
was then to pay to Captain Burns five hundred dollars from my 
first earnings, after getting a berth as a full-fledged pilot. Under 
these terms I received instruction from both men, and as opportu- 
nity offered acted as their wheelsman relieving them of much hard 
work. 

This arrangement was ended by the breaking out of the War 
of Secession and the enlistment of Captain Burns in the army. 
He raised a company for the Forty-sixth Illinois Infantry, at 
Galena, taking about thirty men from the 'Tanny Harris" alone. 
That was in August, 1 86 1. Thomas Cushing then went down 
the river to try his fortune. Two new pilots came aboard, Jim 
Black and Harry Tripp, and I was left out of the pilot house. 
Later in the season the "Fanny Harris" was left so high on the 
bank of the cut-off between Fevre River and Harris Slough that 
the whole crew were discharged. It was necessary to build ways 
under the boat and launch her, in order to get her back into the 
water — a labor of weeks. 

After a short time spent on the "Golden Era" I went up river 
and engaged with Charley Jewell, on the "H. S. Allen", Captain 
S. E. Gray, running between Prescott and St. Croix Falls. After 
a few trips I graduated as a pilot for that run, and conditionally 







1. Daniel Smith Harris. Steamboat Captain, 1833-1861. 

2. Captain Thomas Burns. Pilot on the Upper ^Mississippi 
River from 185() to 1889. Inspector of Steamboats under President 
Cleveland and President McKinley. 

3. Charles G. Hargus. Chief Clerk on the "Royal Arch," 
"Golden State," "Fanny Harris," "Kate Cassell" and many other 
fine steamers on the Upper Mississippi. 

4. George B. Merrick. "Cub" Pilot, 18()2. 



THE PILOTS AND THEIR WORK 83 

for the Galena and St. Paul run. When the call for three hundred 
thousand additional troops came in August, 1862, I decided that 
it was my duty to go to the front and "put down the rebellion", 
as the "boys" of that time put it. Acting upon this commendable 
resolve, I dropped off at Hudson, where I was well acquainted, 
and where several companies were organizing for the three years' 
service. I enlisted in a company intended for the Twenty-fifth 
Wisconsin Infantry, of which Jeremiah Rusk was lieutenant- 
colonel; but when we came to be mustered in we were assigned 
to the Thirtieth Wisconsin Infantry, as Company A. 

My idea was, that if I survived I would return and take up 
my work on the river where I left it. That was the boy idea. 
It was not realized. After three years of service I was mustered 
out in Washington, D. C. I married in the East, and entered 
the employ of a steamship company in New York as agent and 
superintendent, remaining there until 1876. Returning to Wis- 
consin in 1876 I found a half dozen railroads centring in St. 
Paul, and these were doing the business of the hundred steamboats 
that I had left running in 1862. A dozen boats, confined to two 
lines, were handling all the river business between St. Louis and 
St. Paul, and the profession of piloting was at an end. Of the 
hundred boats that I had known fourteen years before, not one 
remained. The average life of a river steamboat was but five years. 

Curiously enough, I had by this time lost all interest in river 
life, except the interest of a trained observer. I enjoyed watching 
the few boats that chanced to come under my observation, and 
could appreciate fully the dexterity of the men who were holding 
their wheels in the pilot houses; but all my ambitions to again be 
one of them appeared to have evaporated, for other lines of work 
had engrossed my attention. Engaging in the newspaper business, 
and later on adding the responsibility of the agency of a railroad 
company, I had enough to think about without pining for lost 
opportunities on the river. 

The work accomplished by the old-time Mississippi pilot while 
guiding his steamer through hundreds of miles of water beset by 
snags, wrecks, and reefs, has been so fully described by "Mark 
Twain" in his Life on the Mississippi, that it would be temerity 
in any one else to attempt to add to what he has so humorously, 
and yet so graphically delineated. It rarely occurs that a man 



84 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

combines a perfect knowledge of a profession so far removed from 
the world of letters as is that of piloting a steamboat with the 
literary skill to describe its details. It will probably never again 
happen that a great master in literature and humor will graduate 
from a pilot house. 

The experiences of a pilot were the same, however, whether 
he turned a wheel on the lower river, as described by "Mark 
Twain", or on the upper river. It will not be plagiarizing, there- 
fore, to tell something of the acquirements necessary in a pilot, 
even though the narrative coincides very closely with what he has 
recorded of similar experiences on the lower reaches. 

Thomas Burns ^ had the reputation of being one of the most 
reliable pilots on the upper waters. He was a Scotchman, in- 
middle life, without vices or failings of any kind, unless smoking 
may be a vice. It certainly wasn't so considered on the river, and 
for the sake of this story we will not consider it so here. He was 
conservative, and would not take any chances, even in a race, 
preferring to follow the deep water with safety, rather than cut 
corners involving risk to the boat and its cargo, even though a 
rival boat did pass him, or he was losing an opportunity to show 
off some fancy piloting. It was said of him that he was the only 
man who could and did steer a stern-wheel steamboat of four 
hundred tons through Coon Slough, downstream, without slowing 
or stopping the wheel — something requiring nerve and fine judg- 

3 Captain Thomas W. Burns was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 
1836. He removed with his parents to Galena, Illinois, in 1842, where he 
received his education in the public schools. After leaving school he went 
on the river as a "cub" pilot, and upon reaching the age of 21 years received 
his certificate as first-class pilot between St. Louis and St. Paul, in which 
capacity he served on many of the best boats of the Minnesota Packet 
Company, including the "War Eagle," "Key City," "Itasca," "Fanny 
Harris," "Kate Cassell," and others. In 1861 he recruited a company of 
steamboatmen at Galena, and was assigned to the 45th Illinois Infantry. 
He remained with his company until after the capture of Fort Henry, 
when he was discharged for disability. Upon his return to Galena he 
took up the work of piloting again, continuing until 1885, when he was 
appointed by President Cleveland to the office of United States Local 
Inspector of Steamboats, with headquarters at Galena. His long years of 
experience on the river, and his high sense of duty made him an excellent 
official, and upon the advent of a Republican administration he was re- 
appointed to the office, in which he was serving at the time of his death, 
March 4, 1890. 



THE PILOTS AND THEIR WORK 85 

merit. A side-wheel boat usually went around the sharp bend 
with one paddle wheel backing and the other going ahead. A 
stern-wheel boat was often compelled to "flank" around the elbow, 
by backing against the point and letting the current swing the 
bow around the bend. 

By the old reckoning, the distance from St. Louis to St. Paul, 
was eight hundred miles; from Rock Island to St. Paul, four 
hundred and fifty. The later survey, after straightening the 
channel by wing-dams and dikes, makes the distance seven hundred 
and twenty-nine miles from St. Louis, and three hundred and 
ninety-eight from Rock Island to St. Paul. It is safe to estimate 
a "crossing" in each and every mile of that river. Some miles may 
have missed their share, but others had a dozen, so the average 
was fully maintained. That was fifty years ago. There are less 
crossings now, but more dams and dikes — two hundred and fifty- 
one dams, dikes, and pieces of dikes in the little stretch of river 
between St. Paul and Prescott, a matter of thirty-six miles. If a 
pilot attempted to make a crossing now, where he made it fifty 
years ago, he would in five hundred different places butt his head 
into a dike instead of a reef. 

Tom Burns, and scores of others like him, knew every rod 
of this river better than the average man knows any one mile of 
sidewalk between his home and his oflSce. He knew it by day and 
by night. He knew it upstream and downstream — and this 
amounted literally to knowing two rivers eight hundred miles long, 
for the instant you turn your boat's prow down river you have 
entered an entirely new country. Every mark is different; the 
bold outlines of bluffs with which you are familiar as j'ou go up 
the river, are as strangers when viewed from the reverse side. You 
have to learn the stream over again, and worse yet, you have to 
learn to handle your boat differently. A novice in the business 
might take a steamer from St. Louis to St. Paul with very fair 
success, while the same man would hang his boat up effectually 
on the first bar he came to, if in going down river he handled 
his wheel in the same manner. Coming upstream he might feel 
of a reef with the bow of his boat, and if he did not strike the best 
water the first time he could back off and try again ; but going 
downstream he must hit the channel the first time or he is gone. 
The current is all the time irresistibly pushing his boat down the 



86 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

river, and if he strikes he is immediately, with the most disastrous 
consequences, swung broadside on to the reef, Tom Burns knew 
his river so well that he could jump from his berth on the darkest 
night and before he reached the pilot house door could tell what 
part of the river the boat was in; the instant his eye caught the 
jack staff he knew to a certainty what crossing the steamer was 
making, and on what part of the crossing she was at the moment. 
This was what every first-class pilot must, and did know. I use 
Burns only as an illustration. 

It was courtesy for the relieved pilot to state the position of 
the boat as he relinquished the wheel to his partner: "Good 
morning, Mr. Gushing! A nasty night. She drags a little, 
to-night. Just making the upper Cassville crossing. Should have 
been farther up. Hope you'll have better luck." This was only 
a matter of form and politeness, and not at all necessary. Mr. 
Gushing or Mr. Burns knew at a glance that it was the upper 
Gassville crossing, and as he took the wheel from the hands of his 
retiring partner he did, the next instant, just what the other would 
have done had he continued. He saw the "swing" of the jack staflE 
and met it; he felt the boat edging away from the reef, and coaxed 
her back, daintily but firmly, a spoke at a time, or possibly half a 
spoke. The continuity was not broken. The exact knowledge 
of the retiring pilot was simply carried along by the pilot coming 
on watch. 

In all the hundreds of miles of river traversed by the boat in 
its voyage up or down, there could be no other combination of 
marks just like the one which met the pilot's e3^e as he grasped 
the wheel. The problem for the "cub" was to learn the combi- 
nation. In the day time it was not customary for the retiring 
partner to mention where the boat was at the time. That would 
have been stretching the point of courtesy too far. All this, how- 
ever, was between equals. When the wheel was turned over to 
the "cub", it was generally a prime necessity that he be advised 
as to the exact position of the boat. Thus primed, if he was 
reasonably advanced, he could take the wheel and with the clue 
given the river would shape itself in his mind, and he would pass 
from one set of marks to the next with some degree of certitude. 
Without the clue, however, it was possible to imagine one's self 
in a hundred probable or improbable places. "All bluffs look alike 



THE PILOTS AND THEIR WORK 87 

to me", might under such circumstances be set to music and sung 
with feeling and expression by the learner. 

What the pilot must know to enable him to run the river at 
night, is strikingly suggested in the conversation between young 
"Mark Twain" and his chief, Mr. Bixby. When the boy had 
begun to take on airs as a pilot, his chief suddenly fired the 
question : 

"What is the shape of Walnut Bend?" 

Of course he did not know, and did not know that he must know. 

Mr. Bixby: "My boy, you've got to know the shape of the river, 
perfectly. It is all there is left to steer by on a very dark night. Every- 
thing else is blotted out and gone. But mind you, it hasn't the same shape 
in the night that it has in the daytime". 

"How on earth am I going to learn it, then?" 

"How do you follow a hall at home in the dark? Because you know 
the shape of it. You can't see it." 

"Do you mean to say I've got to know all the million trifling varia- 
tions of the shape of the banks of this interminable river as well as I 
know the shape of the front hall at home?" 

"On my honor you've got to know them better than any man ever 
did know the shapes of the halls in his own house. . . You see, this 
has got to be learned; there is no getting around it. A clear starlight 
night throws such heavy shadows that if you didn't know the shape of 
the shore perfectly, you would claw away from every bunch of timber, 
because you would take the black shadow of it for a solid cape; and 
you see you would be getting scared to death every fifteen minutes by the 
watch. You would be fifty yards from shore all the time when you ought 
to be within fift}- feet of it. You can't see a snag in one of those shadows, 
but you know exactly where it is, and the shape of the river tells you 
when you are coming to it. Then there's your pitch-dark night; the 
river is a very different shape on a pitch-dark night from what it is on a 
starlight night. All shores seem straight lines then, and mighty dim 
ones, too; j-ou'd run them for straight lines, only you know better. You 
boldly drive your boat into what seems to be a solid straight wall (you 
knowing very well that there is a curve there), and that wall falls back 
and makes way for you. Then there's your gray mist. You take a night 
when there's one of those grizzly gray mists, and then there isn't any 
particular shape to a shore. A gray mist would tangle the head of the 
oldest man that ever lived. Well, then, different kinds of moonlight 
change the shape of the river in different ways. You see — " 

But the cub had wilted. When he came to his chief reassured him 
somewhat by replying to his objections: 

"No! you only learn the shape of the river; and \'ou learn it with 
such absolute certainty that you can always steer by the shape. That's 
in your head, and never mind the one that's before your eyes." 



88 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

And that was approximately the case. The details of the 
river, once learned, were so indellibly printed on the mind of the 
pilot that it seemed as though eyes were almost superfluous. Of 
course Mr. Bixby stated the extreme case. While the pilot was 
running a bend "out of his head" in darkness that might be felt, 
there were always well-known landmarks to be seen — shapes of 
bluffs so indistinct as to seem but parts of the universal blackness. 
But these indistinct outlines were enough to confirm the judgment 
of the man at the wheel in the course he was steering. The man 
in the hall, in Mr. Bixby 's illustration, could not see anything, and 
didn't know what hall he was in. He might just as well have 
been blind ; and I never heard of a blind man running a steamboat, 
day or night. In the short experience that I had in the pilot 
house, I did not reach this perfection; but I have stood on one 
side of the wheel, mechanically following the orders of my chief, 
and listening to the churning of the wheel reechoed from the 
banks not fifty feet away, when I could scarcely see the jack stafF, 
and could not distinguish between the black of the woods and the 
all-pervading black of the night. 

Mr. Burns or Mr. Gushing would translate the situation, 
as the boat plowed along under a full head of steam, somewhat 
like this: "Now we're going down into the bend. Now we're 
opposite the big cottonwood. Now we must pull out a little, to 
avoid that nest of snags. Now we will let her begin to come out; 
the water begins to shoal here; we'll keep away from the point a 
little, and cross over into the west bend, and follow that down in 
the opposite direction," 

This in the way of instruction ; and so far as my observation 
went he was drawing on his imagination for his facts, as I saw 
no big cottonwood, nor nest of snags, nor any point. The only 
thing that I could share with him in common was the fact that we 
were nearing the point and getting into shoaler water — the boat 
told me that. The floor under my feet seemed to hang back and 
drag; the motion of the paddle wheel was perceptibly retarded; 
the escape was hoarser from the pipes. I knew that there was 
shoal water on the point at the foot of the bend, and the boat 
herself told me when we had reached the point ; but I had not seen 
it, either with my eyes, or in my head. Mr. Burns had it all 
in his head, and did not require to see it with his eyes. He simply 



THE PILOTS AND THEIR WORK 89 

ran the bend as he knew it to be; and he ran a hundred others 
in the same way. 

What might happen to any one who ran by sight, and not by 
faith, was illustrated in the case of a young pilot on the "Key 
City", of our line. He had his papers, and was standing watch 
alone in the pilot house. He was going downstream. In going 
into Lansing, Iowa, one runs a long bend on the left-hand shore. 
At Lansing the river turns sharply to the south, from a nearly 
westerly course. Just at the turn, and fronting the river toward 
the east, is a solid limestone bluff four hundred feet high. On a 
starlit night the shadow of this bluff is thrown out upon the river 
so far as totally to obliterate the water, and for several minutes 
one must point his boat straight into an apparently solid bluff 
before he "opens out" the turn to the left. On the night in 
question the young man forgot to run by what he knew to be the 
shape of the river, and trusted to what his eyes showed him. He 
lost his head completely, and instead of stopping both wheels and 
backing away from the impending doom, he put his wheel hard 
over and plumped the "Key City" into the alluvial bank of the 
island opposite, with such force as to snatch both chimneys out of 
her, and very nearly to make a wreck of the steamer. 

I have myself been tempted to run away from the same bluff; 
and but for confidence inspired by the presence of one of the pilots, 
might have done so. Mr. Burns drilled his "cubs" upon one point, 
however, which made for the safety of the boat : "When in doubt, 
ring the stopping bell and set her back." There was no place of 
safety to run to in a panic on the Mississippi, and a boat standing 
still was less likely to hurt herself or any one else than one in 
motion. 

In no other particular, perhaps, has the art of piloting been 
so revolutionized as in the adoption of the electric search-light for 
night running. Time and again have I heard the question asked 
by people new to the river: "Why don't you hang up two or 
three lanterns at the front end of the boat, so that you can see to 
steer?" 

It is easy to answer such a question convincingly. Go out 
into the woods on a very dark night with an ordinary lantern. 
How far can j^ou see by such a light? Perhaps thirty feet; twenty 
feet would probably be nearer the mark. Until a light was dis- 



90 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

covered that could project its rays a half mile or more, and so 
concentrated as clearly to reveal landmarks at that distance, the 
other extreme, no light at all, was not only desirable, but positively 
necessary if the boat v^^as to be kept going. 

After long usage, a pilot's eyes came to possess powers common 
to the cat family and other night prowlers. He could literally 
"see in the dark"; but he could not see in any half light, or any 
light artificial and close at hand. For this reason it was necessary 
to cover every light on the boat while running on a very dark 
night, save the red and green side-lights at the chimney-tops. To 
accomplish this, heavy canvas "shrouds" or "mufflers" were pro- 
vided, which fitted snugly around the forward part of the boat, in 
front of the furnaces on the main deck; another set were placed 
around the boiler deck, in front of the cabin ; and still another 
set to muffle the transom sky-lights on the hurricane deck. When 
these were properly fitted and triced up, there was not a ray of 
light projected forward, to break the dead blackness ahead. So 
delicate was this sense of night sight, that no one was permitted 
to smoke a pipe or cigar in the pilot house at such times, and even 
the mate, sitting by the bell down on the roof below, had to forego 
his midnight pipe. As for the pilot himself, a cigar in front of his 
nose would have shut off his sight as effectively as though he were 
blindfolded. 

Of course, were the pilot looking only ten feet, or even forty 
feet, ahead of his boat, the lights on board might not have inter- 
fered greatly, although they would not have assisted him in the 
slightest. You can not steer a boat by landmarks ten feet ahead 
of her. The pilot searches for landmarks a mile away, and must 
be able to distinguish betw^een two kinds of blackness — the black- 
ness of the night below, and the blackness of the sky above, and 
from the dividing line between the two must read his marks and 
determine his course. He does not see the woods on either side of 
him, and often close at hand. The least ray of artificial light 
would blind the pilot to the things which he must see under such 
conditions, hence the shrouding of the boat was a necessity, were 
she to be run at all on such a night. The coming of the electric 
search-light, and the transfer of the marks from distant bluffs to 
big white diamond boards planted low down on the banks where 
the light can be flashed upon them from a distance of half a mile 



THE PILOTS AND THEIR WORK 



or more, has greatly simplified the work of the pilot, and rendered 
obsolete the curtains which once so completely darkened the Missis- 
sippi steamboat on the blackest of nights. 



Chapter XI 

Knowing the River 

To "know the river" fully, the pilot must not only know 
everything which may be seen by the eye, but he must also feel 
for a great deal of information of the first importance v^^hich is not 
revealed to the eye alone. Where the water warrants it, he 
reaches for this information with a lead line; as on the lower 
river, where the water is deeper, and the draft of boats correspond- 
ingly great. On the upper river, a twelve-foot pole answers 
instead. The performance is always one of great interest to the 
passengers; the results are often of greater interest to the man at 
the wheel. The manner in which the reports of the leadsman are 
received and digested by the pilot, is not usually known to or 
comprehended by the uninitiated. The proceeding is picturesque, 
and adds one more "feature" to the novelties of the trip. It is 
always watched with the greatest interest by the tourist, and is 
apparently always enjoyed by them, whatever the effect upon the 
pilot; whether he enjoys it or not depends on the circumstances. 

Soundings are not always necessarily for the immediate and 
present purpose of working the boat over any particular bar, at the 
particular time at which they are taken, although they may be 
taken for that purpose and no other. In general, during the season 
of low water, the leads are kept going in all difficult places as 
much for the purpose of comparison as for the immediate purpose 
of feeling one's way over the especial reef or bar where the sound- 
ings are taken. If it is suspected that a reef is "making down", 
the pilot wants to satisfy himself on that point, so that he may 
readjust his marks to meet the changed outlines. If a reef is 
"dissolving", he also wants to know that, and readjust his marks 
accordingly — only in the first place, his marks will be set lower 
down the river; in case of a dissolving reef, his marks will be set 



KNOWING THE RIVER 93 

farther upstream, to follow the deep water which is always found 
close under the reef — that is, on the down-stream side. The 
shallowest water is alwaj'S on the crest of the reef, and it "tapers" 
back, upstream, very gradually, for rods — sometimes for half a 
mile or even more, until another reef is reached, with deep water 
under it, and another system of shallows above. 

This is where the perfection of the pilot's memory machine 
is demonstrated along another line. He has acquainted himself 
with every bluflF, hill, rock, tree, stump, house, woodpile, and 
whatever else is to be noted along the banks of the river. He has 
further added to this fund of information a photographic negative 
in his mind, showing the shape of all the curves, bends, capes, 
and points of the river's banks, so that he may shut his eyes, yet see 
it all, and with such certainty that he can, on a night so perfectly 
black that the shore line is blotted out, run his boat within fifty 
feet of the shore and dodge snags, wrecks, overhanging trees, and 
all other obstacles by running the shape of the river as he knows it 
to be — not as he can see it. In sounding, he is mentally charting 
the bottom of the river as he has already charted the surface and 
its surroundings. 

As he approaches the crossing which he wishes to verify, he 
pulls the rope attached to the tongue of the big bell on the roof, 
and sounds one stroke, and an instant later two strokes. The 
captain or mate on watch sings out: "Starboard lead!" "Lar- 
board lead !" and the men detailed for the duty are at their stations 
in a minute or less after the order is given. Then the cry, first 
from starboard and then from port, long-drawn and often musical: 
"No-o-o bottom; no-o-o bottom!" rises from the fo'c'sle, and is 
repeated by the captain or mate to the pilot. "Mar-r-k twain, 
mar-r-r-k twain!" indicates soundings the depth of the sounding 
pole — twelve feet, or two fathoms. This is of no interest to the 
pilot, for he knew there was "no bottom" and "two fathoms" 
before the soundings were taken. It is of the highest interest to 
the passengers, however, to whom the cry of "no bottom" seems 
a paradox, when the boat has been rubbing the bottom most of 
the way from Rock Island up. They have not yet been taught 
that this simply means no bottom with a twelve-foot pole, and does 
not indicate that the Mississippi is a bottomless stream at this or 
any other point. 



94 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

On the upper river, the cry of "ten feet, eight and a half", or 
even "six feet", does not strike any sensitive spot in the pilot's 
mental machinery, for upper river men are used to running "where 
there is a heavy dew". On such occasions he might listen to the 
latest story, detailed by a visiting comrade, and even take part in 
the conversation, apparently indifferent to the monotonous cries 
from the lower deck. But all the time his brain is fitting the 
leadsman's cries to the marks in which the cries have found his 
boat — not consciously, perhaps, but nevertheless surely. He has 
not only fitted the cry into the marks, but has mentally compared 
the present with the depth of water cried at the same spot last trip, 
and the trip before that, and noted the change, if any has taken 
place. Say the leadsman has sung "six feet", "six feet", "six 
feet", six feet", "six feet", until you would think there was no 
other depth but six feet in the river ; then in the same tone he sings 
"five and a half", "six feet", "six feet", "six feet". The pilot is 
still talking with his visitor, watching his marks and turning his 
wheel; but he has picked out that "five-and-a-half" and stored it 
away for future reference, together with all the surroundings of 
his boat at the instant the call reached his ear — the marks ahead, 
astern, and on either side. The next trip, as the leadsman sings 
"six feet", "six feet", "six feet", he will be shocked and grievously 
disappointed if he does not find his "five-and-a-half" at just that 
point. And he will not be counting the "six feet" cries, nor, 
possibly, will he be aware that he is looking for the "five-and-a- 
half". When he drops into the marks where the "five-and-a-half" 
found him last week, if he hears only the "six feet", he will be 
in a similar frame of mind to the man who, coming into town, 
misses a prominent tree or house, and asks: "Where is that big 
tree that stood on the corner, when I was here last time"? 

The pilot does all this without realizing that he is making 
any mental effort. When he begins this sort of drill as a "cub", he 
realizes it fully; and if he is half sharp he will open an account 
with every shoal place between Rock Island and St. Paul, and set 
down in writing the soundings on the lowest place on each reef, 
and try to supply the marks in which his steamer lay when the 
cry was heard. As he grows in his studies he will rely less on his 
notebook and more upon his memory, until the mental picture of 
the bottom of the river becomes as vivid as that of the surface. 



KNOWING THE RIVER 95 

Then, when his chief asks suddenly: "How much water was 
there on the middle crossing at Beef Slough last trip"? he can 
answer promptly: 'Tour feet on starboard, four feet scant on 
port". 

"How much trip before last?" 

"Four feet large, both sides." 

"Right, my boy; you're doing well." 

If that "cub" doesn't grow an inch in a minute, under these 
circumstances, he isn't the right kind of boy to have around. 

Naturally the boys studied the "nightmares", first of all. If 
they could get over Cassville, Brownsville, Trempealeau, Rolling- 
stone, Beef Slough, Prescott, Grey Cloud, and Pig's Eye, they 
could manage all the rest of the river. But the leads were kept 
going in fifty other places which, while not so bad, had enough 
possibilities to warrant the closest watching. The chiefs were 
making mental notes of all these places, and could tell you the 
soundings on every crossing where a lead had been cast, as readily 
as the "cubs" could recite the capital letter readings of Beef Slough 
and Pig's Eye. The miracle of it was, how they could do this 
without giving any apparent attention to the matter at the time. 
tThey struck the bell, the leadsman sang, the mate or captain 
repeated the cries mechanically, while the pilot appeared to pay 
little or no attention to the matter. When he had enough of the 
music he tapped the bell to lay in the leads, and nothing was said 
as to the results. Yet if asked at St. Paul by a brother pilot how 
much water he found on any one of a hundred crossings of average 
depth, he could tell, without hesitation, just where he found the 
lowest cast of the lead. 

In ray experience as a printer I have stood at the case and set 
up an editorial out of my head (how "able" I will not pretend to 
say), at the same time keeping up a spirited argument on politics 
or religion with a visitor. The thinking appeared to be all devoted 
to the argument; it was probably the talking only. To set the 
type required no thought at all; that was purely mechanical; and 
to compose the editorial was the unconscious operation of the 
mind, accustomed to doing just this sort of thing, until the framing 
of words into sentences became more or less mechanical. Certainly 
the mental drill of a river pilot along a very few lines, developed 
a memory for the things pertaining to his profession which was 



96 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

wonderful, when you sit down and attempt to analyze it. To the 
men themselves it was not a wonder — it was the merest common- 
place. It was among the things which you must acquire before 
you could pilot a steamboat; and for a consideration they would 
covenant to teach any boy of average mental ability and common 
sense all these things, provided always that he had the physical 
ability to handle a wheel, and provided also, that he demonstrated 
in time of trial that he had the "nerve" necessary for the business. 
A timid, cowardly, or doubting person had no business in the 
pilot house. If it were possible for him to acquire all the rest, 
and he lacked the nerve to steady him in time of danger, he was 
promptly dropped out of the business. 

I saw this illustrated in the case of a rapids pilot between 
St. Paul and St. Anthony. We always made this trip when a 
cargo of flour was offered by the one mill which in that early 
day represented all there was of that great interest which now 
dominates the business of Minneapolis. While our pilots were 
both capable of taking the boat to St. Anthony and back, the 
underwriters required that we should take a special pilot for the 
trip — one who made a specialty of that run. On the occasion 
in point we had taken an unusually heavy cargo, as the river was 
at a good stage. At that time the channel was very crooked, 
winding about between reefs of solid rock, with an eight to ten 
mile current. It required skilful manipulation of the wheel to keep 
the stern of the boat off the rocks. In going downstream it is 
comparatively easy to get the bow of a steamer around a crooked 
place; it is not easy to keep the stern from swinging into danger. 
In this case the stern of the steamer struck a rock reef with such 
force as to tear one of the wing rudders out by the roots, in doing 
which enough noise was made to warrant the belief that half the 
boat was gone. The special pilot was satisfied that such was the 
case, and exclaimed: "She is gone!" at the same time letting go 
the wheel and jumping for the pilot house door. She would have 
been smashed into kindlings in a minute if she had been left to 
herself, or had the engines been stopped even for an instant. For- 
tunately the rapids pilot was so scared by the noise of rending 
timbers and wheel-buckets that he did not have nerve enough left 
to ring a bell, and the engineer on watch was not going to stop 
until a bell was rung, as he knew that the drift of a minute in 



KNOWING THE RIVER 99 

that white water, would pile us up on the next reef below. For- 
tunately for the "Fanny Harris", Tom Gushing was in the pilot 
house, as well as myself. When the other man dropped the wheel 
Gushing jumped for it, and fired an order to me to get hold of 
the other side of the wheel, and for the next six miles he turned 
and twisted among the reefs, under a full head of steam, which 
was necessary to give us steerageway in such a current. We 
never stopped until we reached St, Paul, where we ran over to 
the west shore, it being shallow, and beached the boat. When she 
struck land the captain took the special pilot by the collar and 
kicked him ashore, at the same time giving him the benefit of 
the strongest language in use on the river at that time. Beyond 
the loss of a rudder and some buckets from the wheel, the boat 
was not seriously damaged, and we continued the voyage to Galena 
as we were. Had Tom Gushing not been in the pilot house at the 
time, she would have been a wreck in the rapids a mile or so 
below St. Anthony Falls. The rapids pilot lost his certificate. 



Chapter XII 

The Art of Steering 

Every pilot must of necessity be a steersman ; but not every 
steersman is of necessity a pilot. He may be studying to become 
a pilot, and not yet out of the steersman stage. "Cubs" begin 
their studies by steering for their chiefs. Many boys become quite 
expert in handling a boat, under the eyes of their chiefs, before 
they are sufficiently acquainted with the river to be trusted alone 
at the wheel for any length of time. 

At first thought, one might imagine a number of favorable 
conditions as prerequisite to the ideal in steering: a straight piece 
of river, plenty of water, and an average steamboat. These would 
indeed guarantee leaving a straight wake ; but under such conditions 
a roustabout might accomplish this. The artistic quality is devel- 
oped in the handling of a boat under the usual conditions — in 
making the multitudinous crossings, where the jack staff is con- 
tinually swinging from side to side as the boat is dodging reefs 
and hunting the best water. In doing this, one man puts his 
wheel so hard down, and holds it so long, that he finds it necessary 
to put the wheel to the very opposite to check the swing of the 
boat and head it back to its proper course, in which evolution he 
has twice placed his rudder almost squarely across the stern of his 
boat. If this athletic procedure is persevered in at every change 
of course, it will materially retard the speed of the steamer and 
leave a wake full of acute angles, besides giving the steersman an 
unnecessary amount of work. 

The skilled steersman, combining his art with his exact 
knowledge of the bottom of the river, will give his boat only enough 
wheel to lay her into her "marks", closely shaving the points of 
the reefs and bars, and will "meet her" so gradually and so soon 
as to check the swing of the jack staff at the exact moment when 



THE ART OF STEERING 



the "marks" are reached. There is then no putting the wheel over 
to bring the boat back, after having overreached her marks, and 
the rudders have at no time been more than a quarter out of line 
with the hull of the boat. It is this delicate handling of the 
wheel, which differentiates between the artist and the athlete. 

Steamboats have their individuality, the same as pilots and 
steersmen. There are boats (or have been), that would almost 
steer themselves, while there are others so perverse and tricky 
that no one could feel sure of keeping them in the river for any 
consecutive two miles. The "Ocean Wave" was, perhaps, the most 
unreliable and tricky of all the craft on the upper river — or any 
river. In low water no one man ever thought of standing a watch 
alone at the wheel, and at times she would run away with two 
men at the wheel. She was short, "stubby", and narrow; and 
when she smelt a reef she would, unless very carefully handled, 
under a slow bell, run away from it, often with one paddle wheel 
backing while the other was coming ahead, and the rudder standing 
squarely across the stern. Many times she has plumped into the 
bank under these conditions, and nothing less than the bank would 
stop her. The "City Belle", the "Favorite", and the "Frank 
Steele" were built much like the "Ocean Wave", but were not 
quite so unreliable in steering. She was in a class by herself. 
On the other hand, the "Key City", one of the largest, longest, 
and finest of the up-river packets, was so well-balanced, and her 
hull so finely moulded, that it was a delight to handle her, even 
under otherwise unfavorable conditions, such as low water, or 
high winds. 

A stern-wheel boat going downstream when the wind was 
blowing up the river, was about as helpless a craft to handle as 
could well be imagined. After she was once "straightened down" 
she was all right; but in attempting to get her nose pointed down 
river, after having made a landing, there were more profane 
possibilities than the uninitiated ever dreamed of. The current, 
acting on the stern of the boat and the partially-submerged wheel, 
was all the time pulling that end of the boat downstream; while 
the wind, acting upon the tall chimneys and the pilot house and 
"Texas", was at the same time pushing the bow of the boat up- 
stream; and the pilot was all the while endeavoring to reverse this 
position, and get the bow of his boat pointed in the direction in 



THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 



which he wished to go. It sometimes took hours to accomplish 
this, particularly if caught in places where the river was narrow 
and correspondingly swift, and the wind strong and contrary. The 
only way to swing a stern-wheel boat was, to put the steering 
wheel hard over, throwing the four rudders as far to one side 
as possible, and then back strongly against them. Under this 
leverage if there was no wind, the boat would swing easily and 
promptly, until her head was pointed downstream; and then by 
coming ahead and gaining steerageway, the boat was under perfect 
control. But when the wind was blowing upstream, it was often 
found impracticable to back fast and far enough to gain the neces- 
sary momentum to swing her in a narrow place; the engines 
would have to be stopped before the boat was swung to more than 
a right angle with the river, and then, before steerageway was 
gained after coming ahead, the bow of the boat would again be 
pointing upstream, and the same performance would have to be 
gone through with — sometimes a dozen or twenty times, before 
the boat would get under way in the proper direction. 

In 1 88 1 I saw Henry Link, after having made a landing at 
Newport, back the "Mary Morton", of the Diamond Jo Line, 
more than five miles down the river, she having swung stern-down 
at that place. He see-sawed back and forth across the stream, 
first in one direction and then in another, and failed at last to 
swing his boat against the strong south wind which was blowing. 
He finally gave it up and ran ashore, and getting out a line 
to a big tree, backed his craft around until her bow was pointed 
downstream, and then made a start from a broadside position 
against the bank. I happened to be a passenger on the boat at 
the time. His remarks on that occasion were unprintable. A 
side-wheel boat, under the same conditions, would have backed 
out into the river, come ahead on one wheel while backing on 
the other, and in two or three minutes would have been going 
full speed ahead on the desired course. That is the beauty of 
the independent side-wheel system. It is a great saving of labor 
and morality for the steersman, and a great saving of time for 
the owners. 

It would seem that if you could get the bow of your boat 
clear of the bank, or of an overhanging tree, after pointing in 
pretty close, that the rest of the boat would follow the bow and 



THE ART OF STEERING 103 

likewise come out, without any undue intimacy with the trees 
or bank. It takes only one trial to disabuse a beginner of this 
notion. The balance of the boat does not follow the bow out of 
such a position; and while every pilot knows the immutable 
laws of physics which operate upon his boat under such circum- 
stances, most of them, sooner or later, get caught, either through 
carelessness or recklessness, just as the green cub does through 
ignorance. 

In running downstream, when you point into the bank, and 
shave it closely, you pull the bow of the boat away, and then 
there are two forces over which you have no control with your 
steering wheel: the impetus of the after half of your boat is still 
in the direction of the bank, after the forward half has begun 
to swing away; which would also be the case in a perfectly dead 
lake. In the river, you have the second force in the current 
which is pressing against the whole of the hull, but more partic- 
ularly against the after part, and this is pushing the boat in 
toward the bank after you have pulled her bow away from it. 
The result is, that while you may clear the bank with the bow 
of the boat, the stern swings in and gets the punishment. 

Because of these two laws of physics, it was almost impossible 
to run a stern-wheel boat around the sharp bend in Coon Slough, 
a feat which "Tom" Burns performed several times without 
stopping a wheel. "Jack" Harris tried it with the big side- 
wheeler, the "Northern Light", late in the fall, when the anchor 
ice was running. Her bow got around all right; but her stern 
swung into the ice which had lodged in the bend, with the result 
that the whole stern was torn away, and she sank in twenty 
feet of water. "Ned" West tried a similar experiment at Dayton 
Bluff, just below St. Paul, with the "Key City". He ran in very 
close to the rocky shore, under full headway. He got her head 
out in good shape, but the stern struck the rocks, tearing out the 
rudder and smashing the deadwood. He worked her back to 
St. Paul with the wheels alone, and there the damage was repaired. 
I doubt if he was even 'reprimanded, for he was the "fastest" 
pilot on the upper river, as well as one of the best, and getting 
eight hundred dollars a month for his services. He could get 
a boat over the course from St. Louis to St. Paul, in less time 
than any other pilot could take the same boat, and that of course 



I04 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

carried with it the supposition that he knew the river as well as 
any man. 

I learned the lesson myself through inattention. I was well 
acquainted with the principle through precept, and had been 
very careful not to run too near the bank. Coming down from 
St. Croix Falls with the "H. S. Allen", on reaching the mouth 
of the Apple River, I saw a school of black bass lying on the 
white sandy bottom where the Apple River empties into the St. 
Croix. The inflow from Apple River sets almost squarely across 
the St. Croix, and when the former is in flood the current sets 
nearly across the channel. To meet it, it is necessary to point 
toward the incoming current, to prevent being thrown against 
the opposite bank. Being an ardent fisherman I was deeply inter- 
ested in the scores of fine fish plainly distinguishable from the 
height of the pilot house. The result was inevitable. I neglected 
to point the bow of the boat sufficiently against the inflow, and 
she took a sheer for the opposite bank the instant she struck 
the cross current. I pulled the wheel hard over in an instant, 
and got the bow clear of the overhanging timber, but the stern 
went under, and when it came out the "H. S. Allen" lacked two 
escape pipes and half of the washroom and laundry. The stew- 
ardess herself was short about half her senses, and all her temper. 
The captain had seen the same trick performed by older and 
better pilots than myself, and was not unduly distressed. It took 
about one hundred dollars to make the boat presentable. I did 
not tell about the black bass for some time after the incident 
occurred — long enough after so that there would be no obvious 
connection between the fish and the missing laundry. 

The man who has once mastered the art of steering a steam- 
boat on Western waters, never loses his love for it. Whatever 
may have been his occupation after leaving the river, 'his hands 
instinctively reach out for the wheel if fortune so favors him as 
to place the opportunity within his reach. I mean, of course, 
the man who sees and feels more than the mere turning of the 
wheel so many hours a day, for so much money to be paid at 
the completion of his task. It may be work, and hard work, 
for the enthusiast as well as for the hireling; but with the man 
who puts his spirit into the task, it is work ennobled by painstaking 
devotion, and glorified by the realization of work artistically and 



THE ART OF STEERING 105 

lovingly done. To such a man there is an exhilaration about the 
handling of a big steamboat in the crooked channels of the Great 
River, akin to that felt by the accomplished horseman when 
guiding a spirited team of roadsters, or that of the engineer, 
holding the throttle of a great locomotive rushing over the rails 
at a speed of sixty miles an hour. However long the hands of 
the horseman or the engineer may have been divorced from reins 
or throttle, there is the same longing to grasp the one or the other 
when the opportunity offers. It is a wholly natural craving of 
the inner being; and however inexplicable it may be, it is there. 
For forty years, since leaving the river for other pursuits, 
often harassing and full of care, I have dreamed, time and again, 
of holding a wheel on one of the old-time boats on which I 
served as a boy. In my sleep I have felt again the satisfaction 
in work well done, the mortification of failure, and have felt again 
the cares and responsibilities that weighed so heavily when beset 
with difficulties and dangers. It is all as real as though I again 
stood at the wheel, doing real work, and achieving real victories 
over besetting difficulties and dangers. Mere work, as a means 
of earning a living, would not take such hold upon one's nature. 
It is the soul of the artist incarnate in the pilot. 



Chapter XIII 

An Initiation 

I have said that in addition to "knowing the river", and 
knowing that he knows it, the young pilot must also be fortified 
with a large measure of self-reliance, or all else will go for 
nothing. The time of trial comes to every one, sooner or later, 
and the manner in which it is met usually determines the standing 
of the young novitiate in the estimation of river men. The repu- 
tation of every man on the river is common property the length 
of his run, from St. Louis to St. Paul. It was proverbial that 
river men "talked shop" more than any others, in those early days, 
probably because they were more interested in their own business 
than they were in that of other men. Possibly because, as one 
government engineer stated it, they didn't know anything else. 
However, the doings of all the river men were pretty thoroughly 
discussed sooner or later, from the latest dare-devil exhibition of 
fancy piloting by "Ned" West, to the mistakes and mishaps of the 
youngest "cub". Sooner or later, each and all were served up 
at the casual meetings of river men, at whatever port they might 
foregather. 

My own "baptism" — not of "fire", but of water and light- 
ning — came on the very first trip I made alone on a steamboat. 
I had been running with Charley Jewell on the "H. S. Allen", 
from Prescott to St. Croix Falls. Mr. Jewell fell sick and was 
laid off at Prescott. On the levee, the day he went home, was 
a steamboat load of rope, rigging, boats, and camp-equipage, 
together with a couple of hundred raftsmen landed from a down- 
river packet that did not care to make the run up the lake. The 
disembarked men were anxious to reach Stillwater with their 
cargo, that night. Our regular starting time, as a United States 
mail boat, was at 7 o'clock in the morning. They offered ex- 
tra compensation if we would take them up that night, and 



AN INITIATION 107 



the proposition was accepted by Captain Gray. All hands were 
set to work loading the stuff. I felt quite elated at the prospect, 
as it was a bright evening, and I felt sure of finding my way, for 
there were only three or four close places to run in the thirty 
miles of lake navigation between Prescott and Stillwater. 

We got everything aboard, and I backed her out and started 
up the lake. There had been some lightning in the north, where 
there was a bank of low-lying clouds. So far away were they, ap- 
parently, that no one thought of a storm, certainly not a serious 
one. We were running toward it, however, and as we soon 
discovered, it was coming to meet us at a rattling pace. We met 
when about six miles above Prescott. First a terrific wind out 
of the north, followed by torrents of rain, and incessant lightning, 
which took on the appearance of chain-mail as it shimmered and 
glittered on the falling rain drops, I put up the breast-board, 
and let down the head-board as far as I could and still leave room 
between to look out ahead; but the fierce wind drove the rain 'in 
sheets into the pilot house, and in a minute's time I was completely 
soaked. The lightning and thunder were terrifying in brilliancy 
and in sharpness of sound, the flash and the report coming so 
closely together as to leave no doubt that the bolts were getting 
seriously close to the smokestacks. The pilot house was not the 
place I would have chosen from which to enjoy these effects, had 
I my choice. The place I really longed for was somewhere down 
below, where I would have felt less conspicuous as a target. 

I managed to work my way around the Kinnickinnic bar, and 
made the run up to the Afton (or "Catfish") bar, around which 
the channel was quite narrow and wofuUy crooked. Thus far, 
the high banks had sheltered us somewhat from the wind. Here, 
however, the low-lying prairie came down to the water's edge. 
The sweep of the wind was terrific, while the downpour of rain 
was such that at times it was impossible to see any landmarks a 
hundred feet away. Captain Gray, wrapped in his storm clothes, 
who had, since the tempest broke, staid on the roof, one eye on 
the banks, when he could see them, and the other on the young 
man at the wheel, finally called up and wanted to know if I did 
not think we had better feel our way ashore and tie up until the 
storm abated, even at the risk of being late in getting back to 
Prescott to take up our regular trip in the morning. I was 



io8 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

shivering so that my teeth chattered, and the captain would have 
been fully justified in assuming that I was shaking as much from 
fear as from cold. I had a deal of pride in those days, however, 
and a fair allowance of inherited courage, with perhaps a dash 
of pig-headedness. I did not wish to have it bulletined from one 
end of the river to the other that the first time I was left in 
charge of a steamboat, I had hunted a tree to tie up to because 
it happened to thunder and rain a little. That would have been 
the popular version of the incident, in any case. I replied, there- 
fore, that if Captain Gray would send his waiter up with a glass 
of brandy, I would take the steamer to Hudson levee before taking 
out a line, and from there to Stillwater and back to Prescott in 
time for our morning run. The captain said nothing, then or 
thereafter, but sent his "boy" up with the brandy. This was 
applied inwardly, and served to take the chill off. 

Thus fortified — temperance people will please not be hor- 
rified at this depravity of a nineteen-year-old novice, under such 
extraordinary provocation — I worked around "Catfish" and fol- 
lowed along the west shore as far as Lakeland. From Lakeland 
across the lake to the Hudson levee, is about three-quarters of a 
mile. It was still blowing a gale, and the rain came down in 
torrents, so that the opposite shore could not be seen — in fact 
one could not distinguish an object ten rods ahead. I had felt 
my way along, sometimes under the "slow bell", until the present. 
I must now cut loose from the west shore, and make the crossing 
to Hudson. There was plenty of water everywhere; but I could 
not see any landmarks on the opposite side of the lake. I got 
a stern bearing, however, and headed across. In a minute's time 
I could see nothing, either ahead or astern, and having no compass 
I had to rely on the "feel" of the rudders to tell me which way 
she was swinging. As it turned out, this was of little value, 
owing to the strength of the wind. For five minutes I ran under 
full head, and then slowed, trying to get a glimpse of the east 
bank, and "find myself". When I did, the "H. S. Allen" was 
headed squarely down the lake, and fully a mile below the Hudson 
landing. The force of the wind on the chimneys had turned her 
bow down-wind and downstream. As the rain began to slacken 
and I could see my marks, it took but a few minutes to straighten 
her up and make the run to the landing. 



AN INITIATION 109 



On leaving Hudson there were two ways of running the 
big bar opposite and below the mouth of Willow River. One, 
the longest, was to cross back to Lakeland and then run up the 
west shore — all of it straight work. The other, was to run 
squarely out into the middle of the lake, turn north and run 
half a mile, then quartering west-north-west across the lake to 
the opposite shore. This crossing saved a mile or more of steaming 
over the other course; but it was crooked and narrow, and the 
possibility of hanging up was much greater. Captain Gray asked 
me, when backing out, which crossing I would make. I replied 
that I was going to take the upper to save time. He said nothing, 
but again took his place by the bell. He made no suggestion, 
nor offered any opinion as to my decision. That was a part of 
the river etiquette, which he adhered to even in the case of a 
boy; for which I sincerely thanked him in my inner being, while 
accepting it outwardly quite as a matter of course — which it 
would have been, with an older and more experienced 1man at 
the wheel. 

I made the crossing without calling for leads, or touching 
bottom, and the rest of the way was easy. When we made Still- 
water the stars were out, and the storm-clouds hung low on the 
southern horizon. I went below and got into dry clothes, and 
had a few hours sleep while the freight was being put ashore. 
Along about two o'clock in the morning I started back, with 
the mate on the roof. In confidence he confided to me the 
gratifying news that the "old man says you're all right. He says 
that you've got nerve enough to last you through". As "nerve" 
was one of the things needed in the business, I was certainly 
proud that my night's work, alone on a heavily-loaded boat, in 
one of the worst of storms, had given me a standing with the "old 
man"; and I felt reasonably certain that his report would carry 
weight among the river men who might chance to discuss the 
merits of the young "cub", and his equipment for serious work. 

I may, I hope, be pardoned for dwelling at such length upon 
an incident of such common occurrence on the river as to attract 
little or no attention when the man at the wheel was an old 
and experienced pilot. But this was my "trying-out" time, which 
made a difference. Even if no one else ever gave the incident a 



THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 



second thought, I should have felt the shame of it to this day, 
had I "craw-fished" on that first trial. 

I have never seen or heard anything to compare with the 
storms we used to have on the river. The river men had a 
theory of their own — not very scientific, and probably without 
foundation in fact — that the vapors from the lowlands and 
islands formed clouds which were more than ordinarily charged 
with electricity. Why they should be more highly charged than 
vapors arising from lowlands or islands elsewhere, they did not 
attempt to explain, and could not had they attempted. The fact 
remains, that our thunder storms were something out of the 
ordinary, and were so regarded by people from the East who 
experienced them for the first time. Many steamboats were struck 
by lightning, but few were burned, the electrical bolt being 
diffused through the iron of the boilers and machinery, and finding 
ready escape through the water-wheel shafts into the river. I have 
heard it stated that engineers have often received serious shocks 
from bolts thus passing from the chimneys to the water, by way 
of the machinery, but I never heard of one being killed. I do 
know that when these pyrotechnics were going on, the engineers 
kept their hands oflE the throttle-wheel, except in cases of dire 
necessity. The pilot was seemingly in more, but really less danger 
than the engineers. However, under such circumstances, a man 
had to hang on to his nerve as well as his wheel; and I doubt 
if many pilots ever became so hardened as not to feel "creepy" 
when the storm was on. 



Chapter XIV 

Early Pilots 

"How did the first steamboats find their way up the hundreds 
of miles of water heretofore unbroken by steam-driven wheel?" 
No voice out of the past will give an answer to this query. The 
imagination of the trained pilot, however, needs no written page 
to solve the problem of how it might have been done; and he 
can picture to himself the satisfaction, akin to joy, of the man at 
the wheel, picking his way amid the thousand islands and snag- 
infested channels innumerable, guided only by his power to read 
the face of the water, and his knowledge of the basic principles 
that govern the flow of all great rivers. Standing thus at his 
wheel, with new vistas of stream and wood and bluff opening to 
him as he rounded each successive bend, choosing on the instant 
the path as yet uncharted; unhampered by time-honored "land- 
marks", with "all the world to choose from", none might be so 
envied as he. But we will never know who had this pleasure all 
his own. 

In thus picturing the passage of pioneer steamboats up the 
Mississippi, there is danger that we may inject into the scene 
the image of the modern floating palace, with her three decks, 
her tall chimneys, her massive side-wheels, her "Texas", and her 
pilot house, fully equipped with spars, gang planks, jack staff, and 
all the paraphernalia of the beautiful and speedy "packets" of our 
day. Upon no such craft, however, did the early navigators pick 
their way into the solitudes of the upper river. Their boats were 
little better than the keel boats which they superseded — in fact 
they were keel boats operated by steam. The cargo-box afforded 
shelter for passengers, merchandise, and machinery. There was 
no pilot house in which to stand, fifty feet above the water, from 
that height to study the river bottom. The steersman stood at 



THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 



the stern, and manipulated his tiller by main strength and awk- 
wardness, while the captain stood at the bow and studied the 
river, and gave his orders to "port" or "starboard", as the case 
required. As the boat drew less than three feet of water, the 
necessity for fine judgment in choosing the channel was not as 
necessary as in guiding a craft drawing twice as much. Never- 
theless, it did call for judgment and decision; and these qualities 
were inherent in the men who made the navigation of Western 
waters their occupation in the early decades of the nineteenth 
century. 

Long years before the advent of steam, the fur-traders of 
the upper river were running their heavily-laden canoes, bateaux, 
and Mackinac boats from St, Anthony Falls to Prairie du Chien, 
and thence up the Wisconsin and down the Fox to Green Bay and 
Mackinac; or, farther down the Mississippi to St. Louis. To 
guide these boats, with their valuable cargoes of peltries, pilots 
were as necessary as on the larger craft that later were to super- 
sede them. A man standing in the stern, with ready paddle in 
hand, was the forerunner of the pilot of civilization. In his veins 
the blood of sunny France mingled with that of a tawny mother 
from Huron, Chippewa, or Dakota wig\vams. His eye was quick 
to read the dimpling waters, and his arm strong to turn the prow 
of his craft aside from threatening snag or sand-bar. 

The transition from bateaux paddle and sweep to the steam- 
boat wheel was not great, and it followed that the names of the 
earliest recorded members of the profession are such as to leave 
no room for doubt as to nationality or pedigree. Louis DeMarah 
heads the list of upper Mississippi River pilots who handled 
steamboats prior to 1836. There were steamers running between 
St. Louis and Fort Snelling from the year 1823, with more or 
less regularity. The "Virginia" (Captain Crawford) was the 
first steamboat to reach Fort Snelling, May 10, 1823. While 
we have the name of the captain, we have no mention of her 
pilots and engineers. It is probable that the master did his own 
piloting. Nearly all historical references to the early navigation 
of the upper Mississippi or Missouri Rivers speak of the master 
as also the pilot of his craft. Occasionally, however, we read of a 
pilot, but do not learn his name, his office being his only in- 
dividuality. 



EARLY PILOTS 113 



Lumbering operations had already begun on the Black, Chip- 
pewa, and St, Croix Rivers prior to 1836, and pilots were in 
demand to run the timber rafts down the river. No doubt De- 
Marah began his professional life in this trade, if not in the 
earlier life of the voyageur. He is mentioned as being an old 
man in 1843, his home being then in Prairie du Chien, where, 
in the census of Crawford County, in the new Territory of 
Wisconsin, he is listed with a family of eight — probably a Chip- 
pewa wife and seven "breeds" of varying attenuations. With 
the phonetic freedom exercised by our forefathers, his name appears 
as Louis "Demerer". 

In connection with DeMarah's name there is associated In 
the earliest annals of the river that of Louis More (or Morrow), 
evidently a corruption of Moreau, a name not appearing on the 
census roll of Crawford County. Evidently a protege of De- 
Marah's, he probably was taught the science of piloting by the 
elder man, as the names are nearly always spoken of in connection. 
Evidently they were partners, so far as that was possible in the 
days when steamboats took but one pilot, running only by day, 
and lying at the bank at night. Captain Russell Blakeley, who 
began life on the river in the early '40's, speaks of these men as 
the first who engaged in steamboat piloting as a business. 

It may only be an accidental coincidence of names, and yet 
it is more than possible that Louis Moreau, of Prairie du Chien 
in 1836, was a descendant of the Pierre Moreau, the noted courier 
du bois, and adventurous trader who befriended Father INIarquette, 
patron saint of Wisconsin, as he lay sick, slowly dying, in his 
squalid hut on the portage between the Chicago River and the Des 
Plaines, one hundred and fifty years earlier, as recorded in the 
pages of Parkman's La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West. 

Another of the earliest pilots was Pleasant Cormack, also 
a Frenchman with possibly a slight dash of Indian blood in his com- 
position. He is in the records as an intelligent, trustworthy pilot, 
and held the wheels of many of the largest and finest of upper 
river boats during the flush times between 1850 and 1862. 

DeMarah and Moreau were so far ahead of my generation 
on the river, that I never saw either of them. My own acquaint- 
ance with the half-breed pilot of tradition, was confined to the 
person of Joe Guardapie, a St. Croix and Mississippi River rafts- 



114 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

man. He filled the bill completely, however, and having seen 
and known him the type was fully identified. A lithe savage, 
about five feet ten inches in height, and a hundred and sixty-five 
or seventy pounds in weight, his color exhibited more of the 
traits of his Chippewa mother than of his French father. In 
facial expression, however, the mercurial disposition of his father's 
kindred supplanted the stolidity of his Indian forbears. As quick 
as a panther, and as strong in nerve and sinew, he could whip 
any member of his crew, single-handed. In case of necessity he 
could put to rout a dozen of them — else he could not have run 
a raft to St. Louis; in fact, had it been otherwise he could not 
have started a raft from the landing at Prescott. Several times he 
made the return trip from below on our boat, taking cabin passage 
vdiile his crew went "deck passage". He loafed in the pilot house 
most of the time on the up trip, as was the custom of the craft, 
and occasionally took a trick at the wheel to relieve the regular 
pilots. I never heard of his doing regular steamboat work, how- 
ever, his tastes and education tying him to rafting. 

It was interesting to listen to his broken English, freely 
mingled with borderland French, the whole seasoned with unmis- 
takable Anglo-Saxon profanity. It is curious to note that the 
untutored Indian has no profanity at all; and that of the French- 
man « of such mild-mannered texture as to be quite innocuous. 
Any one acquainted with modern polite literature must have ob- 
served that the French brand of profanity is used to flavor popular 
novels treating of life in high society, and the mon Dieus and 
sacres are not considered at all harmful reading, even for boarding 
school misses. It follows that the Frenchman who wishes to lay 
any emphasis upon his orders to a mixed crew of all nationalities 
— English, Irish, Dutch, Yankee, and Norwegian, with a sprink- 
ling of French and Indian, must resort to Anglo-Saxon for effective 
expressions. And even this must often be backed with a ready 
fist or a heavy boot, properly to impress the fellow to whom it 
is directed. Joe Guardapie had the whole arsenal with him, all 
the time, largely accounting, I fancy, for his success as a raft pilot. 

Another old-time raftsman was Sandy McPhail. He piloted 
log and lumber rafts from the Chippewa to Prairie du Chien, and 
further down, in the days when Jefferson Davis, as a lieutenant 
in the regular army, was a member of the garrison at Fort Craw- 



EARLY PILOTS 115 



ford. Whether "Sandy" was the name conferred upon him at 
the baptismal font, or gratuitously bestowed by an appreciative 
following on account of the color of his hair and beard, which 
were unmistakably red, will never be known. He certainly had 
no other name on the river. He was a good pilot, and a great 
handler of men, as well, which made him a model raftsman. He 
never took to the milder lines of steamboat piloting, so far as there 
is any record to be found. 

Still another was Charles LaPointe, who ran rafts from 
the Chippewa to lower river ports prior to 1845 — how much 
earlier, it is now impossible to learn. He also was of the typical 
French half-breed voyageur pioneers of the West, and handed 
down a record as a competent navigator of rafts on the river when 
it was almost unknown and entirely undeveloped. 

When I was pantry boy on the "Kate Cassell", my first ven- 
ture aboard, we had a pilot picked up "above the lake", when we 
started out in the spring, a raftsman named McCoy — J. B., I think 
he signed himself. He was from Stillwater, and made but few 
trips on the steamer before taking up his regular work in rafting. A 
Scotchman, very quiet and reserved, so far as his deportment went 
while on the "Kate Cassell", he had, nevertheless, the reputation 
of being exceedingly handy with his fists when on his native saw- 
logs. This reputation led to an impromptu prize fight, which 
was "pulled oiiE " at a woodyard near Hastings, Minnesota. A 
St. Louis bruiser named Parker, who had fought several battles 
on Bloody Island, opposite that city, was on board. Having heard 
of McCoy's reputation as a fighter, he lost no opportunity to 
banter and insult him, especially when he (Parker) was in liquor, 
which was most of the time. This lasted for several days, from 
Galena to Hastings, where it reached a climax. McCoy told him 
he would settle it with him at the next wood-pile, so that they 
might not go into St. Paul with the question in doubt. When 
the wood-pile was reached the officers of the boat, with most of 
the passengers, and as many of the crew as could abandon their 
posts, adjourned to the woods a few rods from the landing. A 
ring was roped oflF, seconds were chosen, and bottle-holders and 
sponge-bearers detailed. The men stripped to their trousers and 
went in. There was not as much science exhibited, probably, as 
in some of our modern professional "mills", but there was plenty 



ii6 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

of good, honest slugging. Both men were well punished, especially 
about the head and face. So equally were they matched, that 
neither suffered a knock-out, and when the bell struck for starting 
they had to quit without either getting the decision. This hap- 
pened in the days when the Heenan-Sayre international bout was 
one of the prime topics of public interest, and it was noticeable that 
any number of our men were well enough posted in the rules of the 
P. R. to serve as officials in all departments. McCoy lost no 
caste among crew or passengers on account of this incident. There 
were neither kid gloves nor silk stockings among the pioneers 
who were pushing into Minnesota in 1856, and an incident of this 
sort was diverting rather than deplorable. 

Other pilots whose names appear very early in the annals 
of steamboating on the upper river, and whose fame as masters of 
the art will ever remain green among members of the craft so 
long as pilots turn a wheel on the river, were William White, 
Sam Harlow, Rufus Williams, George Nichols, Alex. Gody, and 
Hugh White, all of whom appear to have been in service in 
1850 or before. These were followed by John Arnold, Joseph 
Armstrong, John King, Rufus Williams, Edward A. West, E. 
V. Holcomb, Hiram Beadle, William Cupp, Jerome Smith, 
William Fisher, Stephen Dalton, Jackson Harris, Henry Gil- 
patrick, James Black, Thomas Burns, T, G. Dreming, Harry 
Tripp, William Tibbies, Seth Moore, Stephen Hanks, Charley 
Manning, Thomas Cushing, Peter Hall, and fifty others equally 
as good. All of those named, served in the Minnesota Packet 
Company in the days of its prosperity, some of them for many 
years. All were experts in their profession, and some of them, 
as "Ned" West and John King, were entitled to the highest 
encomium known on the river — that of being "lightning pilots". 



Chapter XV 

Incidents of River Life 

Captain William Fisher, of Galena, Illinois, is probably 
the oldest living pilot of the upper Mississippi. At the time of 
this writing (1908), he is spending the closing years of his life 
in quiet comfort in a spot where he can look down upon the 
waters of "Fevre" River, once alive with steamboats, in the 
pilot houses of which he spent over thirty years in hard and 
perilous service. 

As a young man Captain Fisher had served five years on 
the Great Lakes on a "square rigger", at a time when full-rigged 
ships sailed the inland waters. Coming to Galena just as the 
great boom in steamboating commenced, and following the open- 
ing of Minnesota Territory to settlement, he naturally gravitated 
toward the life of a steamboatman, taking his first lessons in 
piloting in 1852, on the "Ben Campbell", under the tutelage 
of Captain M. W. Lodwick. The next season (1853), he 
worked on the "War Eagle", under William White and John 
King, two of the best pilots on the upper river. Under their 
teaching he soon obtained his license, and henceforth for thirty 
years he piloted many of the finest boats running between St. Louis 
and St. Paul. His crowning achievement was the taking of the 
"City of Quincy" from St. Louis to St. Paul, Captain Brock 
being his partner for the trip. The "City of Quincy" was a 
New Orleans packet, that had been chartered to take an excursion 
the length of the river. Of sixteen hundred tons burden, with 
a length of three hundred feet and fifty feet beam, she was the 
largest boat ever making the trip above Keokuk Rapids. 

Two or three incidents of his river life, among the many 
which he relates, are of interest as showing the dangers of that 
life. One, which he believes was an omen prophetic of the War 
of Secession, he relates as follows: 



ii8 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

"I'm going to tell you this just as it happened, I don't 
know whether you will believe me or not. I don't say that I 
would believe it if I had not seen it with my own eyes. If some 
one else had told it to me, I might have set it down as a 'yarn'. 
If they have never had any experiences on the river, some men 
would make yarns to order; it is a mighty sight easier to make 
them than it is to live them — and safer. 

"When this thing happened to me, I was entirely sober, 
and I was not asleep. If you will take my word for it, I have 
never been anything else but sober. If I had been otherwise, 
I would not be here now, telling you this, and eighty-two years 
old. 4 

"Whiskey always gets 'em before they see the eighty mark. 
And you know that a man can't run a steamboat while asleep — 
that is, very long. Of course he can for a little while, but when 
she hits the bank it wakes him up. 

"This story ought to interest you, because I was on your 
favorite boat when it happened. The "Fanny Harris" was sold 
in 1859, in May or June, to go South. She came back right 
away, not going below St. Louis, after all. I took her down 
to that port. Joseph Jones of Galena had just bought the bar for 
the season when she was sold, and lost thirty dollars in money 
by the boat being sold. ^ 

"Captain W. H. Gabbert was in command, and I was 
pilot. We left Galena in the evening. It was between changes 
of the moon, and a beautiful starlight night — as fine as I ever 
saw. By the time we got down to Bellevue, the stars had all 
disappeared, and it had become daylight, not twilight, but broad 
daylight, so bright that you couldn't see even the brightest star, 
and from 11:30 to 12:30, a full hour, it was as bright as any 
day you ever saw when the sun was under a cloud. At midnight 
I was right opposite Savanna. Up to this time Captain Gabbert 
had been asleep in the cabin, although he was on watch. We 
were carrying neither passengers nor freight, for we were just 
taking the boat down to deliver her to her new owners. He 

^This was told in 1903. 

5 Observe the minuteness with which the Captain remembers the 
small and insignificant details of this trip. It is a guarantee that his 
memory is not playing any tricks in his narrative of the more important 
happenings. 










Steamkk "Wak Kagle," 1852; 296 tons. 
Steamer "Milwaukee," 1.S5(); 550 tons. 



INCIDENTS OF RIVER LIFE 



woke up, or was called, and when he saw the broad daylight, 
yet saw by his watch that it was just midnight, he was surprised, 
and maybe scared, just as every one else was. He ran up on to 
the roof and called out: 'Mr. Fisher, land the boat, the world 
is coming to an end'! 

"I told him that if the world were coming to an end we 
might as well go in the middle of the river as at the bank, and 
I kept her going. It took just as long to get dark again as it took 
to get light — about half an hour. It began to get light at 
half-past eleven, and at twelve (midnight) it was broad daylight; 
then in another half hour it was all gone, and the stars had come 
out one by one, just as you see them at sunset — the big, bright 
ones first, and then the whole field of little ones. I looked for 
all the stars I knew by sight, and as they came back, one by one, 
I began to feel more confidence in the reality of things. I couldn't 
tell at all where the light came from; but it grew absolutely 
broad daylight. That one hour's experience had more to do 
with turning my hair white than anything that ever occurred to 
me, for it certainly did seem a strange phenomenon." 

"Was it worse than going into battle?" I asked. 

"Yes, a hundred times worse, because it was different. When 
you go into battle you know just what the danger is, and you 
nerve yourself up to meet it. It is just the same as bracing up. 
to meet any known danger in your work — wind, lightning, storm. 
You know what to expect, and if you have any nerve you just 
hold yourself in and let it come. This was different. You didn't 
know what was coming next; but I guess we all thought just as 
the Captain did, that it was the end of the world. 

"I confess that I was scared, but I had the boat to look 
out for, and until the world really did come to an end I was 
responsible for her, and so stood by, and you know that helps to 
keep your nerves where they belong. I just hung on to the wheel 
and kept her in the river, but I kept one eye on the eastern sky 
to see what was coming next. I hope when my time comes I shall 
not be scared to death, and I don't believe I shall be. It will 
come in a natural way, and there won't be anything to scare 
a man. It is the unknown and the mysterious that shakes him, 
and this midnight marvel was too much for any of us. We had 
a great many signs before the war came, and I believe this 



122 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

marvel on the night in question, was one of them, only we didn't 
know how to read it." 

"How about the narrow escapes, Captain?" 

"Well, I have had a number of them. In 187 1 I was run- 
ning a towboat with coal barges. Twelve miles below Rock 
Island, we were struck by a cyclone. It took the cabin clean 
off the boat, and of course the pilot house went with it. My 
partner was with me in the pilot house, having seen the storm 
coming up, with heavy wind, so he came up to help me keep 
her in the river. At this time we were pushing a lumber raft 
downstream. Both of us were blown into the river. My partner 
got hold of the raft and pulled himself out, but I went under 
it. I thought that it was the end of piloting; but Providence 
was with me. I came up through an aperture where four cribs 
of lumber cornered — a little hole not over three feet square. 
My partner saw me and ran and pulled me out, and we both 
got back on the dismantled hull of our boat. I could not have 
helped myself, as I was too near strangled. The force of the 
cyclone must have stopped the current of the river for the time 
or I would never have come up where I did. The shock and 
the wetting laid me up for six weeks. 

"When I was able to resume work, Dan Rice happened to 
come along with his circus boat. He wanted a pilot to take 
his craft not only up the great river, but also, so far as possible, 
up such tributaries as were navigable, he wishing to give exhibitions 
at all the towns alongshore. I shipped with him for $300 a month 
and had an easy time during the rest of the season, running nights, 
mostly, and laying up daytimes while the show was exhibiting. 

"The next year I was engaged on the "Alex. Mitchell." We 
had left St. Paul at 1 1 o'clock in the forenoon, on Saturday, May 
6, 1872. I am particular about this day and date, for the point 
of this story hinges on the day of the week (Sunday). In trying 
to run the Hastings bridge we were struck by a squall that threw 
us against the abutment, tearing off a portion of our starboard 
guard. We arrived at La Crosse, Sunday morning, and took 
on two hundred excursionists for Lansing. They wanted to 
dance, but it being Sunday Captain Laughton hesitated for some 
time about giving them permission, as it was contrary to the 
known wishes, if not the rules, of Commodore Davidson to have 



INCIDENTS OF RIVER LIFE 123 

dancing or games on board of his boats on Sunday. The passen- 
gers were persistent, however, and at last Captain Laughton 
yielded, saying that he couldn't help it! Of course he might have 
helped it. What is a captain for, if not to run his boat, no 
matter if everybody else is against him? That was where he 
was weak. He finally yielded, however, and they danced all 
the way to Lansing. When we arrived there it was raining, 
and the excursionists chartered the boat for a run back to Victory, 
about ten miles, and they were dancing all the time. 

"Leaving them at Victory we proceeded on our way down 
the river. When about twelve miles above Dubuque, a little 
below Wells's Landing, at three o'clock Monday morning, we 
were struck by a cyclone. We lost both chimneys, the pilot house 
was unroofed, and part of the hurricane deck on the port side 
was blown off. Mr. Trudell, the mate, was on watch, and stand- 
ing on the roof by the big bell. He was blown off, and landed 
on shore a quarter of a mile away, but sustained no serious 
injuries. The port lifeboat was blown a mile and a half into 
the country. Following so soon after the Sunday dancing, I 
have always felt that there was some connection between the two." 

Captain Fisher is a very conscientious man — a religious man, 
and he believes in observing Sunday — that is, keeping it as nearly 
as is possible on a steamboat running seven days in the week. The 
dancing was wholly unnecessary, if not in itself immoral, and 
its permission by Captain Laughton was in direct contravention 
of the known wishes if not orders of the owners. Hence the 
conclusion that Providence took a hand in the matter and meted 
out swift punishment for the misdoing. I did not argue the matter 
with the Captain ; but I could not reconcile the unroofing of Com- 
modore Davidson's steamboat, or the blowing away of Mr. Trudell, 
who had no voice in granting license to the ungodly dancers, with 
the ordinary conception of the eternal fitness of things. If it 
had blown Captain Laughton a mile and a half into the country, 
as it did the port lifeboat, or even a quarter of a mile, as it 
did Mr. Trudell, and had left Commodore Davidson's steamboat 
intact, the hand of Providence would have appeared more plainly 
in the case. As it was. Captain Laughton slept serenely in his 
berth while Mr. Trudell and the lifeboat were sailing into space, 
and he did not get out until all was over. It is pleasant to be 



124 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

able to relate that although Providence appears to have miscarried 
in dealing out retribution, Commodore Davidson did not. Cap- 
tain Davis was put in charge of the "Alex. Mitchell" as soon as 
she struck the levee at St. Louis. 

William F. Davidson — "Commodore", from the fact that 
he was at the head of the greatest of upper river packet lines — 
had been converted after many years of strenuous river life. He 
was as strong a man, affirmatively, after he began living religiously, 
as he had been negatively before that time. He abolished all 
bars from his steamboats, at great pecuniary loss to himself and 
the other stockholders; forbade Sunday dancing and other forms 
of Sunday desecration; stopped all gambling, and instituted other 
reforms which tended to make his steamboats as clean and rep- 
utable as the most refined ladies or gentlemen could wish. The 
promptitude with which he cashiered Captain Laughton, on ac- 
count of the foregoing incident, was in keeping with his character 
as a man and as a manager. It was an evidence that he meant all 
that he said or ordered in the ethical conduct of his steamboats. 

The Commodore had a brother, Payton S. Davidson, who had 
the well-earned reputation of being one of the best steamboatmen 
on the Mississippi. Superintendent of the Northwestern Line, 
he prided himself upon the regularity with which his boats arrived 
at or departed from landings on schedule time. He was a driver, 
and the captains and pilots who could not "make time" under any 
and all conditions of navigation, were persona non grata to "Pate", 
and when they reached this stage they went ashore with scant 
notice. In other ways he was equally efficient. 

One of the Northwestern Line, the "Centennial", was caught 
in the great ice gorge at St. Louis, in 1876. She was a new 
boat, costing $65,000, just off the ways, and a beauty. She was 
stove and sank, as did a dozen other boats at the same time. All 
the others were turned over to the underwriters as they lay, and 
were a total loss. Not so the "Centennial". Superintendent 
Payton S. Davidson was on hand and declared that the beautiful 
new boat could and should be raised. Putting on a force of 
men — divers, wreckers, and other experts — under his personal 
supervision and direction, he did get her afloat, although in a badly 
damaged condition, and that at a cost of only $5,000. Twice 
she sank, after being brought to the surface ; but the indomitable 



INCIDENTS OF RIVER LIFE 125 

energy of Davdison, who worked night and day, sometimes in 
the water up to his middle, and in floating ice, finally saved the 
steamer. She was one of the finest boats that ever plied the 
upper river. Payton S. was famous for his pugnacity as well 
as his pertinacity, and there is no record of his repentance or 
conversion. He lived and died a typical steamboat captain of 
the olden time. 



Chapter XVI 

Mississippi Menus 

It was a saying on the river that if you wished to save 
the meals a passenger was entitled to on his trip, you took him 
through the kitchen the first thing when he came aboard. The 
inference was, that after seeing the food in course of preparation 
he would give it a wide berth when it came on the table. It 
would be unfair to the memory of the average river steward to 
aver that this assertion was grounded upon facts; but it would 
be stretching the truth to assert that it was without foundation. 
Things must be done in a hurry when three meals a day are to 
be prepared and served to three or four hundred people; and 
all the work had to be accomplished in two kitchens, each ten 
by twenty-feet in area — one for meats and vegetables, and the 
other for pastry and desserts. 

The responsibility of providing for meals at stated times, 
with a good variety, cooked and served in a satisfactory manner, 
devolved upon the steward. Under him were two assistants, 
with meat cooks, vegetable cooks, pastry cooks, and bread makers, 
and a force of waiters and pantrymen conditioned upon the boat's 
capacity for passengers. While the steward was in the thought 
of outsiders rated as an officer of the second class, he was as a 
matter of fact in the first class. When the pay of the captain 
was three hundred dollars per month, and that of the mate two 
hundred, the average steward of any reputation also commanded 
two hundred, while a man with a large reputation commanded 
three hundred, the same as the captain, and his services were 
sought by the owners of a dozen boats. Likewise, he earned 
every cent of his salary, whatever it might be. 

Unlike the other officers he had no regular watch to stand, 
after which he might lay aside his responsibility and let the 



MISSISSIPPI MENUS 127 

members of the other watch carry the load while he laid off and 
watched them sweat. He was on duty all the time, and when 
and how he slept is to this day a mystery to me. He might have 
slept in the morning, when the cooks were preparing breakfast, 
had he felt quite confident that the cooks were not likewise 
sleeping, instead of broiling beefsteaks and making waffles. This 
being a matter of some doubt, and of great concern, he was usually 
up as soon as the cooks, and quietly poking about to see that 
breakfast reached the table promptly at seven o'clock. If the 
floor of the cabin was covered with sleepers, it was the steward 
who must awaken them, and, without giving offense, induce them 
to vacate the premises that the tables might be set. This was 
a delicate piece of business. To send a "nigger" to perform that 
duty, would be to incur the risk of losing the "nigger". The 
steward also saw that the assistant in charge of the waiters was 
on hand with all his crew, to put the cabin to rights, set the tables, 
and prepare to serve breakfast, while the cabin steward and the 
stewardess, with their crews, were making up the berths, sweep- 
ing, dusting, and "tidying up". 

As soon as breakfast was out of the way, the menu for dinner 
was prepared and handed to the chief cook. Shortages in pro- 
visions were remedied at the first landing reached, and stocks of 
fish, game, fresh eggs, and fresh vegetables were bought as offered 
at the various towns. While there was a cold-storage room on 
all first-class packets, its capacity was limited, and with a passenger 
list of two hundred and fifty or three hundred in the cabin, it 
was often found necessary to lay in additional stocks of fresh 
meats between Galena and St. Paul. Often, a dozen lambs could 
be picked up, or a dozen "roaster" pigs, and these were killed 
and dressed on the boat by one of the assistant cooks. Live poultry 
was always carried in coops, and killed as wanted. Perhaps the 
poultry killing, if witnessed by the passenger, would come as 
near curing him of the dinner habit as anything else he might see 
about the cook's galley. A barrel of scalding hot water, drawn 
from the boiler, stands on the guard. A coop of chickens is 
placed near the master of ceremonies, and two or three assistants 
surround the barrel. The head dresser grasps a chicken by the 
head, gives it a swing from the coop to the barrel, bringing the 
chicken's neck on to the iron rim of the barrel. The body goes 



128 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

into hot water and the head goes overboard. Before the chicken 
is dead he is stripped of everything except a few pin feathers — 
with one sweep of the hand on each side of the body and a dozen 
pulls at the wing feathers. The yet jerking, featherless bodies 
are thrown to the pin-feather man, who picks out the thickest 
of the feathers, singes the fowls over a charcoal grate-fire and 
tosses them to one of the under-cooks who cuts them open, cuts 
them up, and pots them, all inside of two minutes from the coop. 
A team of three or four expert darkies will dispose of one hundred 
and fifty chickens in an hour. Are they clean? I never stopped 
to inquire. If they were dead enough to stay on the platter when 
they got to the table that was all any reasonable steamboatman 
could ask. 

However, the live chicken business is about the worst feature 
of the cook-house operations. Of course the darkies are not the 
cleanest-appearing people aboard the boat, but if the steward is 
up in his business he sees to it that a reasonable degree of clean- 
liness is maintained, even in the starboard galley. On the opposite 
side of the steamer is the pastry-cook's domain, and that is usually 
the show place of the boat. Most stewards are shrewd enough 
to employ pastry cooks who are masters of their profession, men 
who take a pride not only in the excellence of their bread, biscuit, 
and pie crust, but also in the spotlessness of their workshops. 
They are proud to receive visits from the lady passengers, who 
can appreciate not only the out-put but the appearance of the 
galley. It is a good advertisement for a boat, and the steward 
himself encourages such visits, while discouraging like calls at 
the opposite side. 

In old, flush times in the steamboat business, pastry cooks 
generally planned to give a surprise to the passengers on each 
up trip of the steamer. I remember one such, when no less than 
thirteen different desserts were placed in front of each passenger 
as he finished the hearty preliminary meal. Six of these were 
served in tall and slender glass goblets — vases, would more nearly 
describe them — and consisted of custards, jellies, and creams 
of various shades and flavors; while the other seven were pies, 
puddings, and ice creams. The passenger was not given a menu 
card and asked to pick out those that he thought he would like, 
but the whole were brought on and arranged in a circle about 



MISSISSIPPI MENUS 129 

his plate, leaving him to dip into each as he fancied, and leave 
such as did not meet his approval. It vi^as necessary to carry 
an extra outfit of glass and china in order to serve this bewildering 
exhibition of the pastry cook's art, and it was seldom used more 
than once on each trip. 

Serving such a variety of delicacies, of which but a small 
portion was eaten by any person at the table, would seem like 
an inexcusable waste; but the waste on river steamers was really 
not as great in those days as it is in any great hotel of our day. 
Each steamer carried forty or more deck hands and "rousters". 
For them, the broken meat was piled into pans, all sorts in each 
pan, the broken bread and cake into other pans, and jellies and 
custards into still others — just three assortments, and this, with 
plenty of boiled potatoes, constituted the fare of the crew below 
decks. One minute after the cry of "Grub-pile"! one might wit- 
ness the spectacle of forty men sitting on the bare deck, clawing 
into the various pans to get hold of the fragments of meat or 
cake which each man's taste particularly fancied. It certainly 
wasn't an appetizing spectacle. Only familiarity with it enabled 
an onlooker fully to appreciate its grotesqueness without allowing 
the equilibrium of his stomach to be disturbed. It usually had but 
one effect upon such lady passengers as had the hardihood to 
follow the cry of "Grub-pile" ! and ascertain what the thing 
really was. 

Altogether the duties of the steward were arduous and tor- 
menting. The passengers expected much ; and after getting the 
best, if any slip occurred they were sure to enter complaint — a 
complaint so w^orded as to convey the impression that they never 
had anything fit to eat while on the boat, nor any service that 
white men were justified in tolerating. The fact was, that most 
of the passengers so served had never in all their lives lived so 
well as they did on the trip from Galena to St. Paul on one of 
the regular boats of the Minnesota Packet Company. Certainly, 
after reaching their destination in the Territory of Minnesota, 
the chances were that it would be many long years, in that era 
of beginnings, before they would again be so well fed and so 
assiduously cared for, even in the very best hotels of St. Paul. 

This chapter on Mississippi menus would be incomplete with- 
out some reference to the drinkables served on the steamboat tables. 



I30 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

These were coffee, tea, and river water. Mark Twain has 
described the ordinary beverage used on the river, as it is found 
on the Missouri, or on the Mississippi below the mouth of the 
"Big Muddy": 

"When I went up to my room, I found there the young man called 
Rogers, crying. Rogers was not his name; neither was Jones, Brown, 
Baxter, Ferguson, Bascom, nor Thompson; but he answered to either of 
them that a body found handy in an emergency; or to any other name, 
in fact, if he perceived that you meant him. He said: 

" 'What is a person to do here when he wants a drink of water? drink 
this slush?' 

"'Can't you drink it?' 

" 'I would if I had some other water to wash it with.' 

"Here was a thing which had not changed ; a score of years had not 
affected this water's mulatto complexion in the least; a score of centuries 
would succeed no better, perhaps. It comes out of the turbulent bank- 
caving Missouri, and every tumblerful of it holds nearly an acre of land 
in solution. I got this fact from the bishop of the diocese. If you will 
let your glass stand half an hour, you can separate the land from the 
water as easy as Genesis; and then you will find them both good; the 
one good to eat, the other good to drink. The land is very nourishing, 
the water is thoroughly wholesome. The one appeases hunger, the other, 
thirst. But the natives do not take them separately, but together, as 
nature mixed them. When they find an inch of mud in the bottom of 
the glass, they stir it up, and then take the draught as they would gruel. 
It is difficult for a stranger to get used to this batter, but once used to it 
he will prefer it to water. This is really the case. It is good for steam- 
boating, and good to drink; but it is worthless for all other purposes, 
except baptizing." 

The above sketch had not been written in i860, as Mark 
Twain was himself piloting on the lower river at that time. It 
could not, therefore, have been this description which prejudiced 
many eastern people against Mississippi River water as a beverage. 
But that prejudice did exist, away back in the fifties, and the 
fame of the yellow tipple had reached even to the fastnesses of 
the Vermont hills at that early day. Many emigrants from the 
old New England states provided themselves with kegs, jugs or 
"demijohns", and before embarking at Rock Island or Dunleith 
for the river trip, would fill these receptacles with water from 
the nearest well, or even cistern, and drink such stuff, warm, 
and sometimes putrid, rather than drink the life-giving elixir 
which had welled up from springs nestled in the shadows of the 
everlasting hills, or had been distilled by the sun from the snow- 



MISSISSIPPI MENUS 131 

banks and ice fields of the unspoiled prairies and azure lakes 
of the great northwest. 

One old Yankee would pin his faith to nothing less than the 
water from his own spring or well at home, away back in old 
Vermont, and brought, at infinite pains and labor, a five-gallon 
demijohn all the way from his native state, drinking it on the 
cars en route, and on the boat after reaching the river. 

It wasn't as bad as that. The river water was as pure and 
healthful as any water on the footstool — then. It may not be 
so now — it isn't, now. Then there were no great cities on the 
river banks, pouring thousands of gallons of sewage and all manner 
of corruption into the stream, daily. There was very little land 
under cultivation even, and few farmyards, the drainage from 
which might contaminate the feeders of the great river. It was 
good, clean, healthful, spring and snow water. Above the mouth 
of the Missouri, in any ordinary stage of water, especially with 
a falling river, the water was but slightly discolored with the 
yellow sediment with which the river itself is always tinged ; and 
this sediment was so fine that there was no suspicion of grit about 
it. When properly stirred up and evenly mixed, as those to the 
manner born always took it, it was an invigorating potion, and 
like good old Bohea, it would cheer but not inebriate. 

Since the advent of sewage in the river and with it the 
popular superstition that everything, liquid or solid, is permeated 
with pernicious microbes, it is possible that it has lost something 
of its pristine purity, and it is certain that it has lost something 
of its reputation; but river men still drink it from preference, 
and passengers, unless they revert to the Yankee method, must 
drink it perforce, or go dry. 



Chapter XVII 

Bars and Barkeepers 

In the old days on the river, whiskey was not classed as 
one of the luxuries. It was regarded as one of the necessities, 
if not the prime necessity, of life. To say that everybody drank 
would not be putting much strain upon the truth, for the excep- 
tions were so few as scarcely to be worth counting. It was a 
saying on the river that if a man owned a bar on a popular 
packet, it was better than possessing a gold mine. The income 
was ample and certain, and the risk and labor slight. Men who 
owned life leases of steamboat bars willed the same to their 
sons, as their richest legacies. Ingenious and far-seeing men set 
about accumulating bars as other men invested in two, three, or 
four banks, or factories. 

"Billy" Henderson of St. Louis was the first financier to 
become a trust magnate in bars. He owned the one on the 
"Excelsior", on which boat he ran between St. Louis and St. 
Paul. Later, he bought the lease of the bar on the "Metropol- 
itan", and still later, when the Northern Line was organized, 
he bought the bars on all the boats, putting trusty "bar-keeps" 
aboard each, he himself keeping a general oversight of the whole, 
and rigorously exacting a mean average of returns from each, 
based upon the number of passengers carried. This system of 
averages included men, women, and children, and "Indians not 
taxed", presupposing that a certain percentage of the passengers' 
money would find its way into his tills, regardless of age, sex, or 
color. What his judgment would have been had one of the craft 
been chartered to carry a Sunday school picnic from St. Louis 
to St. Paul, will never be known. Such an exigency never con- 
fronted him, in those days. The judgment rendered was, that 
he was not far off in his conclusions as to the average income 
from the average class of passengers carried. 



BARS AND BARKEEPERS 135 

Ordinarily, the bartenders were young men "of parts". None 
of them, so far as I know, were college graduates; but then 
college graduates were then mighty few in the West in any calling 
— and there were bars in plenty. It was required by their 
employers that they be pleasant and agreeable fellows, well dressed, 
and well mannered. They must know how to concoct a few of 
the more commonplace fancy drinks affected by the small number 
of travellers who wished such beverage — whiskey cocktails for the 
Eastern trade, and mint juleps for the Southern. The plain, 
everyday Western man took his whiskey straight, four fingers 
deep, and seldom spoiled the effect of his drink by pouring water 
on top of it. The "chaser" had not, at that early day, become 
fashionable, and in times of extreme low water it was not per- 
mitted that water should be wasted in that manner when all 
was required for purposes of navigation. 

The barkeeper was also supposed to know how to manufacture 
a choice brand of French brandy, by the judicious admixture of 
burnt peach stones, nitric acid, and cod-liver oil, superimposed 
upon a foundation of Kentucky whiskey three weeks from the 
still. He did it, too; but judicious drinkers again took theirs 
straight, and lived the longest. 

I flatter myself that I can recall the name of but one bartender 
with whom I sailed. While I had no very strong scruples about 
drinking or selling liquor, I seldom patronized the bar beyond 
the purchase of cigars and an occasional soft drink. I remember 
one dispenser, however, from his short but exceedingly stormy 
experience on the "Fanny Harris". He was an Irish lad, about 
twenty or twenty-one years of age, and not very large. He was 
sent on board by the lessee of the bar, who lived in Dubuque. 

Charley Hargus, our chief clerk, did not like the Irish. He 
had personal reasons for disliking some member of that nationality, 
and this dislike he handed on to all its other members with whom 
he came in contact. There were no Irishmen among the officers 
of the "Fanny Harris", and when Donnelly came aboard to take 
charge of the bar Hargus strongly objected, but without avail. 
He then set himself about the task of making life so uncomfortable 
for the lad that he would be sure to transfer to some other boat, 
or quit altogether, an end accomplished within three months. The 
process aflEorded rare amusement to such witnesses as happened 



136 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

to see the fun, but there was no fun in it for Donnelly; and in 
later years, when I came to think it over, my sympathy went 
out to the poor fellow, who suffered numberless indignities at the 
hands of his tireless persecutor. If Donnelly — who was not at 
all a bad fellow, was earning his living honestly, and never did 
anything to injure Hargus — had had the spirit common to most 
river men in those days, he would have shot the chief clerk and 
few could have blamed him. 

Bars are not looked upon with the same favor in our day, 
as in the past. It is claimed that upon some of the boats plying 
upon the upper river there are now no bars at all. If a person 
thinks he must have liquor on the trip, he must take it with his 
baggage. It is further credibly asserted that many of the officers 
handling the steamers are teetotalers; further, that there is no 
more profit in the bar business, and that investors in that kind 
of property are becoming scarce. Modern business conditions are 
responsible for much of the change that has taken place, especially 
in the transportation business, within the last twenty-five years. 
Railroad and steamboat managers do not care to intrust their 
property to the care of drinking men, and it is becoming more 
and more difficult for such to secure positions of responsibility. 
As the display of liquor in an open bar might be a temptation to 
some men, otherwise competent and trusty officers, the owners 
are adopting the only consistent course, and are banishing the 
bar from their boats. 

This does not apply in all cases, however. A few years ago 
I took a trip from St. Paul to St. Louis on one of the boats of 
the Diamond Jo Line. There was a bar on the boat, but it 
seemed to depend for its patronage upon the colored deck crew. 
They were pretty constant patrons, although their drinking was 
systematically regulated. A side window, opening out upon the 
boiler deck promenade, was devoted to the deck traffic. If a 
rouster wanted a drink he must apply to one of the mates, who 
issued a brass check, good for a glass of whiskey, which the deck 
hand presented at the bar, and got his drink. When pay day 
came, the barkeeper in his turn presented his bundle of checks 
and took in the cash. How many checks were issued to each 
man on the trip from St. Louis to St. Paul and return, I do not 
know; but it is safe to say that the sum total was not permitted 



BARS AND BARKEEPERS 137 

to exceed the amount of wages due the rouster. Some of the 
"niggers" probably had coming to them more checks than cash, 
at the close of the voyage. The regulation was effective in pre- 
venting excess, which would demoralize the men and render them 
less valuable in "humping" freight. 

The bartender always poured out the whiskey for the "coons", 
and for the latter it was not a big drink. It was, likewise, not 
a good drink for a white man, being a pretty tough article of 
made-up stuff, that would burn a hole in a sheet-iron stove. If 
it had been less fiery the rousters would have thought they were 
being cheated. 

While on this trip, I never saw an officer of the boat take 
a drink at the bar, or anywhere else, and but few of the passengers 
patronized it. It accentuated as much as any other one thing 
the fact that the "good old times" on the river were gone, and 
that a higher civilization had arisen. But peddling cheap whiskey 
to "niggers" ! What would an old-time bartender have thought 
of that? The bare insinuation would have thrown him into a 
fit. But we are all on an equality now, black and white — before 
the bar. 



Chapter XVIII 

Gamblers and Gambling 

Volumes have been written, first and last, on the subject of 
gambling on the Mississippi. In them a small fraction of truth 
is diluted with a deal of fiction. The scene is invariably laid 
upon a steamboat on the lower Mississippi. The infatuated 
planter, who always does duty as the plucked goose, invariably 
stakes his faithful body servant, or a beautiful quadroon girl, 
against the gambler's pile of gold, and as invariably loses his 
stake. Possibly that may occasionally have happened on the lower 
river in ante-bellum days. I never travelled the lower river, 
and cannot therefore speak from actual observation. 

On the upper river, in early times, there were no nabobs 
travelling with body servants and pretty quadroons. Most of the 
travellers had broad belts around their waists, filled with good 
honest twenty-dollar gold pieces. It was these belts which the 
professional gamblers sought to lighten. Occasionally they did 
strike a fool who thought he knew more about cards than the 
man who made the game, and who would, after a generous baiting 
with mixed drinks, "set in" and try his fortune. There was, 
of course, but one result — the belt was lightened, more or less, 
according to the temper and judgment of the victim. 

So far as I know, gambling was permitted on all boats. On 
some, there was a cautionary sign displayed, stating that gentlemen 
who played cards for money did so at their own risk. The 
professionals who travelled the river for the purpose of "skinning 
suckers" were usually the "gentlemen" who displayed the greatest 
concern in regard to the meaning of this caution, and who freely 
expressed themselves in the hearing of all to the effect that they 
seldom played cards at all, still less for money; but if they di4 
feel inclined to have a little social game it was not the business 



GAMBLERS AND GAMBLING 139 

of the boat to question their right to do so, and if they lost their 
money they certainly would not call on the boat to restore it. 

After the expression of such manly sentiments, it was sur- 
prising if they did not soon find others who shared with them 
this independence. In order to convey a merited reproof to 
"the boat", for its unwarranted interference with the pleasure 
or habits of its patrons, they bought a pack of cards at the bar 
and "set in" to a "friendly game". In the posting of this incon- 
spicuous little placard, "the boat" no doubt absolved itself from all 
responsibility in what might, and surely did follow in the "friendly 
games" sooner or later started in the forward cabin. Whether 
the placard likewise absolved the officers of the boat from all 
responsibility in the matter, is a question for the logicians. I 
cannot recollect that I had a conscience in those days; and if a 
"sucker" chose to invest his money in draw poker rather than in 
corner lots, it was none of my business. In that respect, indeed, 
there was little choice between "Bill" Mallen on the boat with 
his marked cards, and Ingenuous Doemly at Nininger, with his 
city lots on paper selling at a thousand dollars each, which to-day, 
after half a century, are possibly worth twenty-five dollars an 
acre as farming land. 

Ordinarily, the play was not high on the upper river. The 
passengers were not great planters, with sacks of money, and 
"niggers" on the side to fall back upon in case of a bluff. The 
operators, also, were not so greedy as their real or fictitious fellows 
of the lower river. If they could pick up two or three hundred 
dollars a week by honest endeavor they were satisfied, and gave 
thanks accordingly. 

Probably by some understanding among themselves, the fra- 
ternity divided themselves among the different boats running 
regularly in the passenger trade, and only upon agreement did 
they change their boats; nor did they intrude upon the particular 
hunting ground of others. 

The "Fanny Harris" was favored with the presence, more 
or less intermittently, of "Bill" Mallen, "Bill" and "Sam" Dove, 
and "Boney" Trader. "Boney" was short for Napoleon Bona- 
parte. These worthies usually travelled in pairs, the two Dove 
brothers faithfully and fraternally standing by each other, while 
Mallen and "Boney" campaigned in partnership. 



I40 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

These men were consummate actors. They never came aboard 
the boat together, and they never recognized each other until 
introduced — generally through the good offices of their intended 
victims. In the preliminary stages of the game, they cheerfully 
lost large sums of money to each other; and after the hunt w^as 
up, one usually went ashore at Prescott, Hastings, or Stillwater, 
while the other continued on to St. Paul. At different times they 
represented all sorts and conditions of men — settlers, prospectors, 
Indian agents, merchants, lumbermen, and even lumber-jacks; and 
they always dressed their part, and talked it, too. To do this 
required some education, keen powers of observation, and an all- 
around knowledge of men and things. They were gentlemanly 
at all times — courteous to men and chivalrous to women. While 
pretending to drink large quantities of very strong liquors, 
they did in fact make away with many pint measures of quite 
innocent river water, tinted with the mildest liquid distillation 
of burned peaches. A clear head and steady nerves were pre- 
requisites to success; and when engaged in business, these men 
knew that neither one nor the other came by way of "Patsey" 
Donnelly's "Choice wines and liquors". They kept their private 
bottles of colored water on tap in the bar, and with the uninitiated 
passed for heavy drinkers. 

The play was generally for light stakes, but it sometimes ran 
high. Five dollars ante, and no limit, afforded ample scope for 
big play, provided the players had the money and the nerve. 
The tables were always surrounded by a crowd of lookers-on, 
most of whom knew enough of the game to follow it understand- 
ingly. It is possible that some of the bystanders may have had 
a good understanding with the professionals, and have materially 
assisted them by signs and signals. 

The chief reliance of the gamblers, however, lay in the 
marked cards with which they played. No pack of cards left 
the bar until it had passed through the hands of the gambler who 
patronized the particular boat that he "worked". The marking 
was called "stripping". This was done by placing the high cards — 
ace, king, queen, jack, and ten-spot — between two thin sheets 
of metal, the edges of which were very slightly concaved. Both 
edges of the cards were trimmed to these edges with a razor; the 
cards so "stripped" were thus a shade narrower in the middle 



GAMBLERS AND GAMBLING 141 

than those not operated upon ; they were left full width at each 
end. The acutely sensitive fingers of the gamblers could dis- 
tinguish between the marked and the unmarked cards, while the 
other players could detect nothing out of the way in them. "Bill" 
Mallen would take a gross of cards from the bar to his stateroom 
and spend hours in thus trimming them, after which they were 
returned to the original wrappers, which were carefully folded and 
sealed, and replaced in the bar for sale. A "new pack" was 
often called for by the victim when "luck" ran against him; 
and Mallen himself would ostentatiously demand a fresh pack 
if he lost a hand or two, as he always did at the beginning of the 
play. 

I never saw any shooting over a game, and but once saw 
pistols drawn. That was when the two Doves were holding 
up a "tenderfoot". There was a big pile of gold on the table — 
several hundred dollars in ten and twenty dollar pieces. The 
losers raised a row and would have smashed the two operators 
but for the soothing influence of a cocked Derringer in the hands 
of one of them. The table was upset and the money rolled in 
all directions. The outsiders decided where the money justly 
belonged, in their opinion, by promptly pocketing all they could 
reach while the principals were fighting. I found a twenty myself 
the next morning. 

I saw "Bill" Mallen for the last time under rather peculiar 
and unlooked-for circumstances. It was down in Virginia, in 
the early spring of 1865. There was a review of troops near 
Petersburg, preparatory to the advance on Lee's lines. General 
O. B. Wilcox and General Sam. Harriman had sent for their 
wives to come down to the front and witness the display. I was 
an orderly at headquarters of the First Brigade, First Division, 
Ninth Army Corps, and was detailed to accompany the ladies, who 
had an ambulance placed at their disposal. I was mounted, and 
coming alongside the vehicle began to instruct the driver where 
to go to get the best view of the parade. The fellow, who was 
quite under the influence of liquor, identified himself as Mallen, 
and sought to renew acquaintance with me. 

It went against the grain to go back on an old messmate, 
but the situation demanded prompt action. "Bill" was ordered 
to attend closely to his driving or he would get into the guard- 



142 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

house, with the displeasure of the division commander hanging 
over him, which would not be a pleasant experience. He knew 
enough about usages at the front, at that time, to understand 
this, and finished his drive in moody silence. After the review 
was over he went back to the corral with his team, and I to head- 
quarters. I never saw or heard of him again, the stirring incidents 
of the latter days of March, 1865, eclipsing everything else. I 
presume he was following the army, nominally as a mule driver, 
while he "skinned" the boys at poker as a matter of business. 
The whiskey had him down for the time being, however, other- 
wise I would have been glad to talk over former times on the 
river. 



Chapter XIX 

Steamboat Racing 

It is popularly supposed that there was a great deal of racing 
on Western rivers in the olden time — in fact, that it was the 
main business of steamboat captains and owners, and that the more 
prosaic object, that of earning dividends, was secondary. There 
is a deal of error in such a supposition. At the risk of detract- 
ing somewhat from the picturesqueness of life on the upper 
Mississippi as it is sometimes delineated, it must in truth be said 
that little real racing was indulged in, as compared with the 
lower river, or even with the preconceived notion of what trans- 
pired on the upper reaches. While there were many so-called 
steamboat races, these were, for the most part, desultory and 
unpremeditated. On the upper river, there never was such a 
race as that between the "Robert E. Lee" and the "Natchez", 
where both boats were stripped and tuned for the trial, and where 
neither passengers nor freight were taken on board to hinder or 
encumber in the long twelve hundred miles between New Orleans 
and St. Louis, which constituted the running track. 

It is true, however, that whenever two boats happened to 
come together, going in the same direction, there was always a 
spurt that developed the best speed of both boats, with the result 
that the speediest boat quickly passed her slower rival, and out- 
footed her so rapidly as soon to leave her out of sight behind some 
point, not to be seen again, unless a long delay at some landing 
or woodyard enabled her to catch up. These little spurts were 
in no sense races, such as the historic runs on the lower waters. 
They were in most cases a business venture, rather than a sporting 
event, as the first boat at a landing usually secured the passengers 
and freight in waiting. Another boat, following so soon after, 
would find nothing to add to the profits of the voyage. 



144 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

Racing, as racing, was an expensive if not a risky business. 
Unless the boats were owned by their commanders, and thus 
absolutely under their control, there was little chance that permis- 
sion would be obtained for racing on such a magnificent and spec- 
tacular scale as that usually depicted in fiction. 

The one contest that has been cited by every writer on upper 
river topics, that has ever come under my observation, was the 
one between the "Grey Eagle" (Captain D. Smith Harris), and 
the "Itasca" (Captain David Whitten) ; and that was not a race 
at all. It is manifestly unfair to so denominate it, when one of 
the captains did not know that he was supposed to be racing w^ith 
another boat until he saw the other steamer round a point just 
behind him. Recognizing his rival as following him far ahead 
of her regular time, he realized that she was doing something out 
of the ordinary. He came to the conclusion that Captain Harris 
was attempting to beat him into St. Paul, in order to be the first 
to deliver certain important news of which he also was the bearer. 
When this revelation was made, both boats were within a few 
miles of their destination, St. Paul. 

Here are the details. In 1856, the first telegraphic message 
was flashed under the sea by the Atlantic cable — a greeting from 
Queen Victoria to President Buchanan. Captain D. Smith 
Harris had, the year before, brought out the "Grey Eagle", which 
had been built at Cincinnati at a cost of $60,000. He had built 
this boat with his own money, or at least a controlling interest 
was in his name. He had intended her to be the fastest boat on 
the upper river, and she was easily that. As her captain and 
practically her owner, he was at liberty to gratify any whim that 
might come into his head. In this case it occurred to him that 
he would like to deliver in St. Paul the Queen's message to the 
President ahead of any one else. 

There was at that time no telegraph line into St. Paul. 
Lines ran to Dunleith, where the "Grey Eagle" was taking in 
cargo for St. Paul, and also to Prairie du Chien, where the 
"Itasca" was loading. Both boats were to leave at six o'clock in 
the evening. Captain Harris had sixty-one miles farther to run 
than had Captain Whitten. But Harris knew that he was racing, 
and Whitten did not, which made all the difference in the world. 

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STEAMBOAT RACING i47 

landing, putting off all cargo at each place, and taking on all that 
offered, and probably delayed to pass the compliments of the day 
with agents and other friends, as well as discuss the great message 
that he was bearing. The "Grey Eagle", on the contrary, stopped 
at only a few of the principal landings, and took on no freight 
after leaving Dunleith. She did not even put off freight that she 
was carrying, but took it through to St. Paul and delivered it on 
her return trip. She carried the mail, but in delivering it a man 
stood on the end of one of the long stages run out from the bow, 
from which he threw the sacks ashore, the boat in the meantime 
running along parallel with the levee, and not stopping completely 
at any landing. Running far ahead of her time, there were no 
mail sacks ready for her, and there was no reason for stopping. 
The "Grey Eagle" had the best of soft coal, reinforced by sundry 
barrels of pitch, from which the fires were fed whenever they 
showed any signs of failing. With all these points in her favor, 
in addition to the prime fact that she was by far the swiftest 
steamboat that ever turned a wheel on the upper river, it was 
possible for her to overtake the slower and totally unconcerned 
"Itasca", when only a few miles from St. Paul. 

The race proper began when Whitten sighted the "Gray 
Eagle" and realized that Harris was trying to beat him into St. 
Paul in order to be the first to deliver the Queen's message. Then 
the "Itasca" did all that was in her to do, and was beaten by 
less than a length, Harris throwing the message ashore from the 
roof, attached to a piece of coal, and thus winning the race by a 
handbreadth. 

The time of the "Grey Eagle" from Dunleith, was eighteen 
hours; the distance, two hundred and ninety miles; speed per 
hour, 1 6 1/9 miles. 

The "Itasca", ran from Prairie du Chien to St. Paul in 
eighteen hours; distance, two hundred and twenty-nine miles; 
speed, 12 2/3 miles per hour. 

The "Itasca" was far from being a slow boat, and had Whit- 
ten known that Harris was "racing" with him, the "Grey Eagle" 
would not have come within several hours of catching her. 

As a race against time, however, the run of the "Grey Eagle" 
was really something remarkable. A sustained speed of over 
sixteen miles an hour for a distance of three hundred miles, up- 



148 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

stream, is a wonderful record for an inland steamboat anywhere, 
upper river or lower river; and the pride which Captain Harris 
had in his beautiful boat was fully justified. A few years later, 
she struck the Rock Island Bridge and sank in less than five min- 
utes, a total loss. It was pitiful to see the old Captain leaving the 
wreck, a broken-hearted man, weeping over the loss of his darling, 
and returning to his Galena home, never again to command a 
steamboat. He had, during his eventful life on the upper river, 
built, owned, or commanded scores of steamboats; and this was 
the end. 

The "Northerner", of the St. Louis Line, was a fast boat, 
and an active contestant for the "broom". The boat that could, 
and did run away from, or pass under way, all other boats, signal- 
ized her championship by carrying a big broom on her pilot house. 
When a better boat passed her under way, the ethics of the river 
demanded that she pull the broom down and retire into seclusion 
until she in turn should pass the champion and thus regain her 
title. The struggle on the upper river lay between the "North- 
erner" and the "Key City". The "Grey Eagle" was in a class 
by herself, and none other disputed her claims, while actively 
disputing those of all others of the Minnesota Packet Company, 
of which the "Key City" was the champion and defender. 

The two rivals got together at Hudson, twenty miles up 
Lake St. Croix — whether by accident or agreement it is impos- 
sible to say, but probably by agreement. They had twenty miles 
of deep water, two miles wide, with only four close places to run. 
It was a fair field for a race, and they ran a fair and a fine one. 
For miles they were side by side. Sometimes a spurt would put 
one a little ahead ; and again the other would get a trifle the most 
steam and the deepest water, and so creep ahead a little. When 
they came into Prescott, at the foot of the lake, the "Key City" 
was a clear length ahead, her engineers having saved a barrel or 
two of resin for the home stretch. With this lead she had the 
right of way to turn the point and head up the river. Ned West 
was at the wheel, with an assistant to "pull her down" for him, 
and he made a beautiful turn with his long and narrow craft; 
while the "Northerner" had to slow down and wait a minute or 
two before making the turn. In the meantime the "Key City's" 
whistles were blowing, her bell ringing, and her passengers and 



STEAMBOAT RACING 149 

crew cheering, while a man climbed to the roof of the pilot house 
and lashed the broom to the finial at the top, the crown of laurels 
for the victor. 

The lower river stern-wheel steamer "Messenger" was also 
a very fast boat. On one occasion she came very near wresting 
the broom from the "Key City", in a race through Lake Pepin, 
where also there was plenty of water and sea room. The "Key 
City" had a barge in tow and thus was handicapped. The "Mes- 
senger" seemed, therefore, likely to win the race, as she had passed 
the former under way. Within four miles of the head of the 
lake. Captain Worden of the "Key City" ordered the barge cast 
adrift, having placed a few men on board of it, with an anchor 
and cable to use in case of necessity. Thus freed from the encum- 
brance, he put on steam and passed his rival before reaching 
Wacouta, in spite of the most strenuous efforts on the part of the 
latter to retain her lead. Running far enough ahead of the 
"Messenger" to render the maneuver safe, Worden crossed her 
bow, and circling around her ran back and picked up his barge. 

In this race, it was said by passengers who were on board 
the two boats, that the flames actually blazed from the tops of the 
tall chimneys on both craft; and on both, men were stationed on 
the roof playing streams of water from lines of hose on the chim- 
ney breechings, to prevent the decks from igniting. Under such 
conditions it is easy to see how a boat might catch fire and burn. 
And yet the passengers liked it. Had they been the owners of 
casks of hams, as legend relates of a passenger on a lower river 
boat under like circumstances, there is no doubt they would have 
made an oblation of them to the gods of heat and steam, rather 
than have the other boat win. 

The earliest recorded race run on the upper river was that 
between the "Nominee", owned and commanded by Captain Orren 
Smith, and the "West Newton" (Captain Daniel Smith Harris), 
in 1852. In this event but one boat actually ran, for Harris had 
no confidence in the ability of his boat to win, and not possessing 
the temper that would brook defeat, he declined to start. The 
"Nominee" completed the run from Galena to St. Paul and return, 
a distance of seven hundred miles, making all landings and hand- 
ling all freight and passengers, in fifty-five hours and forty-nine 
minutes, an average rate of speed of I2j^ miles an hour, half of it 



I50 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

against and half with the current. This was good running, for 
the boats of that time. As there was no other boat to compete 
for the honor, the "Nominee" carried the broom until she sank 
at Britt's Landing, below La Crosse, in 1854. 

Bunnell, in his very interesting History of Winona^ says: 
"Captain Orren Smith was a very devout man; and while he might 
indulge in racing, for the honor of his boat, he believed in keeping the 
Sabbath; and as long as he owned the boats which he commanded he 
would not run a minute after twelve o'clock Saturday night, but would 
tie his boat to the bank, wherever it might be, and remain at rest until 
the night following at twelve o'clock, when he would resume the onward 
course of his trip. If a landing could be made near a village or settle- 
ment where religious services could be held, the people were invited on 
board on Sunday, and if no minister of the gospel was at hand, the zealous 
Captain would lead in such service as suited his ideas of duty. But the 
Captain's reverence and caution did not save his boat, and she sank below 
La Crosse in the autumn of 1854." 

Two of the boats on which I served, the "Kate Cassell" and 
the "Fanny Harris", while not of the slow class, yet were not 
ranked among the fast ones ; consequently we had many opportuni- 
ties to pass opposition boats under way, and to run away from 
boats that attempted to so humiliate us. 

There was a great difference in boats. Some were built for 
towing, and these were fitted with engines powerful enough, if 
driven to their full capacity, to run the boat under, when the 
boat had no barges in tow. Other boats had not enough power 
to pull a shad off a gridiron. It was the power that cost money. 
A boat intended solely for freighting, and which consequently 
could take all the time there was, in which to make the trip, did 
not require the boilers and engines of a passenger packet in which 
speed was a prime factor in gaining patronage. 

There is great satisfaction in knowing that the boat you are 
steering is just a little faster than the one ahead or behind you. 
There is still more satisfaction in feeling, if you honestly can, 
that you are just a little faster as a pilot than the man who is 
running the other boat. The two combined guarantee, absolutely, 
a proper ending to any trial of speed in which you may be en- 
gaged. Either one of them alone may decide the race, as a fast 
pilot is able to take his boat over a long course at a better rate 
of speed than a man not so well up in his business. If both men 



STEAMBOAT RACING 



are equally qualified, then it is certain that the speediest boat will 
win. 

What conditions determine the speed of two boats, all observ- 
able terms being equal? Nobody knows. The "Key City" and 
the "Itasca" were built for twins. Their lines, length, breadth, 
and depth of hold were the same; they had the same number and 
size boilers, and the parts of their engines were interchangeable; 
yet the "Key City" was from one to three miles an hour the 
faster boat, with the same pilots at the wheel. It was a fruitful 
topic for discussion on the river; but experts never reached a more 
enlightening conclusion than, "Well, I don't know". They 
didn't. 

The boats of the old Minnesota Packet Company averaged 
better than those of a later era. In the run from Prairie du 
Chien to St. Paul, as noted above, the "Itasca" averaged twelve 
miles an hour, upstream, handling all her freight and passengers. 
The schedule for the Diamond Jo Line boats, in 1 904, allowed 
eight miles an hour upstream, and eleven downstream, handling 
freight and passengers. 



Chapter XX 

Music and Art 

In the middle of the nineteenth century, many an artist 
whose canvases found no market in the older cities, found ready 
bidders for his brush, to decorate the thirty-foot paddle-boxes of 
the big side-wheelers with figures of heroic size; or, with finer 
touch, to embellish the cabins of Western steamboats with oil 
paintings in every degree of merit and demerit. 

The boat carrying my father and his family from Rock 
Island to Prescott, upon my first appearance on the Father of 
Waters, was the "Minnesota Belle". Her paddle-boxes were 
decorated with pictures the same on each side, representing a 
beautiful girl, modestly and becomingly clothed, and carrying in 
her arms a bundle of wheat ten or twelve feet long, which she 
apparently had just reaped from some Minnesota field. In her 
right hand she carried the reaping-hook with which it was cut. 

All the "Eagles" were adorned with greater than life-size 
portraits of that noble bird. Apparently all were drawn from 
the same model, whether the boat be a Grey-, Black-, Golden-, 
War-, or Spread-Eagle. 

The "Northern Belle", also had a very good looking young 
woman upon her paddle-boxes. Evidently she exhibited herself 
out of pure self-satisfaction, for she had no sheaf of wheat, or any 
other evidence of occupation. She was pretty, and she knew it. 

The "General Brooke" showed the face and bust, in full 
regimentals, of the doughty old Virginian for whom it was named. 

Later, the "Phil Sheridan" boasted an heroic figure of Little 
Phil, riding in a hurry from Winchester to the front, the hoofs 
of his charger beating time to the double bass of the guns at 
Cedar Creek, twenty miles away. 

The "Minnesota" reproduced the coat-of-arms of the state 






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MUSIC AND ART 155 

whose name she bore — the ploughman, the Indian, and the 
motto "L'etoile du Nord". But the majority of the side-wheel 
boats boasted only a sunburst on the paddle-boxes, outside of 
which, on the perimeter of the wheel-house circle, was the legend 
showing to what line or company the boat belonged. The sun- 
burst afforded opportunity for the artist to spread on colors, and 
usually the effect was pleasing and harmonious. 

It was the inside work wherein the artists in oil showed 
their skill. Certainly there were many panels that showed the 
true artistic touch. The "Northern Light", I remember, had 
in her forward cabin representations of Dayton Bluff, St. An- 
thony Falls, Lover's Leap, or Maiden Rock, drawn from nature, 
for which the artist was said to have been paid a thousand dollars. 
They were in truth fine paintings, being so adjudged by people 
who claimed to be competent critics. On the other hand there 
were hundreds of panels — thousands, perhaps, in the myriad of 
boats that first and last plied on the river — that were the veriest 
daubs. These were the handiwork of the house painters who 
thought they had a talent for higher things, and who had been 
given free hand in the cabin to put their ambitions on record. 

There was one case, however, which appealed to the humor- 
ous side of every one who was fortunate enough to see it. It was 
not intended that it should strike just this note. The artist who 
put it on the broad panel over the office window of the little 
stern-wheel "dinkey" from the Wabash, intended to convey a 
solemn note of warning to all who might look upon it to flee 
temptation. As the painting very nearly faced the bar, it re- 
quired no very great stretch of imagination to read into the picture 
the warning to beware of the tempter, strong drink, particularly 
the brand served out on a Hoosier packet hailing from the Wabash. 

In the centre was a vividly-green apple tree, bearing big red 
fruit. Our beloved Mother Eve, attired in a white cotton skirt 
that extended from waist to knee, was delicately holding a red 
scarf over her left shoulder and bosom. Confronting her was a 
wofuUy weak-minded Adam, dressed in the conventional habit 
of a wealthy first century Hebrew. The Satanic snake, wear- 
ing a knowing grin on his face, balanced himself on the tip of 
his tail. 

Thirty years or more after the little boat from the Wabash 



156 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

introduced this artistic gem to travellers on the upper river, I saw 
a copper-plate engraving two centuries old, from which the 
Hoosier artist had painted his panel. It was all there, except 
the colors — the tree, the apples. Eve in her scarf and skirt, 
Adam as a respectable Hebrew gentleman, and Satan balanced 
on the turn of his tail and leering with a devilish grin at the 
young woman who wanted to know it all, and at the lily-livered 
Adam who then and there surrendered his captaincy and has been 
running as mate ever since. 

In the flush times on the river all sorts of inducements were 
offered passengers to board the several boats for the up-river 
voyage. First of all, perhaps, the speed of the boat was dwelt 
upon. It was always past my comprehension why any one who 
paid one fare for the trip, including board and lodging as long 
as he should be on the boat, and who had three good, if not 
"elegant", meals served each day without extra charge, should 
have been in such a hurry to get past the most beautiful scenery 
to be found anywhere under the sun. I would like nothing better 
than to take passage on the veriest plug that ever made three miles 
an hour, and having full passage paid, dawdle along for a week, 
and thus be enabled to enjoy in a leisurely manner, all the beauties 
of river, bluff, and island. 

After speed came elegance — "fast and elegant steamer" — 
was a favorite phrase in the advertisement. An opportunity to 
study Eve and her apple, instead of the wealth of beauty which the 
Almighty has strewn broadcast over the Mississippi Valley, was an 
inducement carrying weight with some. It was a matter of taste. 

After elegance came music, and this spoke for itself. The 
styles affected by river steamers ranged from a calliope on the roof 
to a stringed orchestra in the cabin. My recollection is, that most 
of us thought the name "calliope" was derived from some mechan- 
ical appliance in connection with music, with which we were as 
yet unfamiliar, the fame of Jupiter's daughter not yet having 
extended to the headwaters of the Mississippi. The question as 
to what relation this barbaric collection of steam whistles bears 
to the epic muse, that it should have appropriated her name, is 
still an open question. The "Excelsior", Captain Ward, was 
the first to introduce the "steam piano" to a long-sulifering passen- 
ger list. Plenty of people took passage on the "Excelsior" in 



MUSIC AND ART 157 

order to hear the calliope perform; many of them, long before 
they reached St. Paul, wished they had not come aboard, partic- 
ularly if they were light sleepers. The river men did not mind 
it much, as they were used to noises of all kinds, and when they 
"turned in" made a business of sleeping. It was different with 
most passengers, and a steam piano solo at three o'clock in the 
morning was a little too much music for the money. After its 
introduction on the "Excelsior", several other boats armed them- 
selves with this persuader of custom; but as none of them ever 
caught the same passenger the second time, the machine went out 
of fashion. Other boats tried brass bands; but while these at- 
tracted some custom they were expensive, and came to be dropped 
as unprofitable. 

The cabin orchestra was the cheapest and most enduring, as 
well as the most popular drawing card. A band of six or eight 
colored men who could play the violin, banjo, and guitar, and in 
addition sing well, was always a good investment. These men 
were paid to do the work of waiters, barbers, and baggagemen, and 
in addition were given the privilege of passing the hat occasionally, 
and keeping all they caught. They made good wages by this 
combination, and it also pleased the passengers, who had no sus- 
picion that the entire orchestra was hired with the understanding 
that they were to play as ordered by the captain or chief clerk, and 
that it was a strictly business engagement. They also played for 
dances in the cabin, and at landings sat on the guards and played 
to attract custom. It soon became advertised abroad which boats 
carried the best orchestras, and such lost nothing in the way of 
patronage. 

Some of the older generation yet living, may have heard Ned 
Kendall play the cornet. If not, they may have heard of him, for 
his fame was at this time world-wide, as the greatest of all 
masters on his favorite instrument. Like many another genius, 
strong drink mastered him, and instead of holding vast audiences 
spell-bound in Eastern theatres, as he had done, he sold his art to 
influence custom on an Alton Line boat. It was my good fortune 
to have heard him two or three times, and his music appeals to 
me yet, through all the years that lie between. The witchery and 
the pathos of "Home, Sweet Home", "Annie Laurie", the "White 
Squall", and selections from operas of which I had then never 



158 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

even heard the names, cast such a spell that the boat on which 
he travelled was crowded every trip. Pity 'tis that one so gifted 
should fall into a slavery from which there was no redemption. 
He died in St. Louis, poor and neglected, a wreck infinitely more 
pitiable than that of the finest steamboat ever cast away on the 
Great River. 

One of the boats on which I served employed a sextet of 
negro firemen, whose duty, in addition to firing, was to sing to 
attract custom at the landings. This was not only a unique per- 
formance, but it was likewise good music — that is, good of its 
kind. There was nothing classic about it, but it was naturally 
artistic. They sang plantation melodies — real negro melodies; 
not the witless and unmusical inanities which under the name of 
"coon songs" pass with the present generation for negro min- 
strelsy. Of course these darkies were picked for their musical 
ability, and were paid extra wages for singing. 

The leader, Sam Marshall, received more than the others, 
because he was an artist. This term does not do him justice. In 
addition to a voice of rare sweetness and power, Sam was a born 
improvisator e. It was his part of the entertainment to stand on 
the capstan-head, with his chorus gathered about him, as the boat 
neared the landing. If at night, the torch fed with fatwood and 
resin threw a red glow upon his shining black face, as he lifted up 
his strong, melodious voice, and lined out his improvised songs, 
which recited the speed and elegance of this particular boat, the 
suavity and skill of its captain, the dexterity of its pilots, the man- 
fulness of its mate, and the loveliness of Chloe, its black chamber- 
maid. This latter reference always "brought down the house", as 
Chloe usually placed herself in a conspicuous place on the guards to 
hear the music, and incidentally the flatteries of her coal-black lover. 
As each line was sung by the leader the chorus would take up the 
refrain : 

De Captain stands on de upper deck; 

(Ah ha-a-a-ah! Oh ho-o-o-o-ho!) 
You nebber see 'nudder such gentlehem, / 'spec; 
(Ah ha-a-a-ah, Oh ho-o-o-ho.) 
and then would follow, as an interlude, the refrain of some old 
plantation melody in the same key and meter, the six darkies sing- 
ing their parts in perfect time and accord, and with a melody that 
cannot be bettered in all the world of music. 



MUSIC AND ART 159 

De pilot he twisses he big roun' wheel; 
(Ah ha-a-a-ah, Oh ho-o-o-oh.) 

He sings, and he whissels, and he dance Virginia reel, 
(Ah ha-a-a-ah, Oh ho-o-o-ho), — 

an undoubted reference to Tom Gushing, who, before his promo- 
tion to the pilot house was said to have been a tenor in grand 
opera in New York. He was a beautiful singer at any rate ; could 
whistle like a New York newsboy, and dance like a coryphee. 
The "Old Man" would have been willing to take his oath that 
Gushing could and did do all three at the same time, in the most 
untimely hours of the morning watch, at the same time steering 
his steamboat in the most approved fashion. 
The next stanza was: 

" 'Gineer in the engin' room listenn' fo' de bell ; 

He boun' to beat dat oder boat or bus' 'em up to — heb'n" 

was accepted as a distinct reference to Billy Hamilton, as the 
manner of stating his intention to win out in a race was peculiar 
to the junior engineer, and the proposition was accepted without 
debate. 

"De Debbel he come in the middle of de night; 

Sam, dere, he scairt so he tuhn mos' white — Jes like dat white man 
out dere on de lebbee", 

pointing at some one whom he deemed it safe to poke fun at, and 
of course raising a laugh at the expense of the individual so 
honored. 

"Des look at dem white fokses standin' on de sho'; 
Dey la-a-aff, and dey la-a-aff, till dey cain't laff no mo' — ha-ha- 
ha-ha-ha", 

and Sam would throw back his head and laugh a regular contagion 
into the whole crowd — on the boat and "on de sho", opening 
a mouth which one of the darkies asserted was "de biggest mouf 
dis nigger ebber saw on any human bein' 'cept a aligator" ; or, as 
the mate expressed it: "It was like the opening of navigation." 

"Dish yer nigger he fire at the middle do'; 
Shake 'em up libely for to make de boat go", 

was a somewhat ornate description of Mr. Marshall's own duties 
on board the boat. As a matter of fact he did very little firing. 



i6o THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

personally, although when a race was on he could shovel coal or 
pitch four-foot wood into the middle door with the best of them, 
at the same time, singing at the top of his voice. Upon ordinary- 
occasions he let the other darkies pitch the cord wood while he 
exercised a general supervision over them, as became an acknowl- 
edged leader. 

To hear these darkies sing the real slave music, which was 
older than the singers, older than the plantation, as old as Africa 
itself, wherein the ancestors of some of them at least, might have 
been kings and princes as well as freemen, was better than the 
fo'c'sle comedies enacted for the amusement of the passengers. 
These minor chords carried a strain of heartbreak, as in the lines: 

"De night is dark, de day is long 
And we are far fum home, 
Weep, ray brudders, weep!" 

And the closing lines: 

"De night is past, de long day done, 
An' we are going home, 
Shout, my brudders, shout!" 

were a prophecy of that day of freedom and rest, after centuries 
of toil and bondage, the dawn of which was even then discernible 
to those who, like Abraham Lincoln, were wise to read in the 
political heavens the signs of its coming. 



Chapter XXI 

Steamboat Bonanzas 

How it was possible to derive any profit from an investment 
of from $20,000 to $40,000, the principal of which had an average 
tenure of life of but five years, has puzzled a great many conser- 
vative business men from "down east", where "plants" lasted a 
lifetime, and the profits from which may have been sure, but were 
certain to be small. A man educated in such an atmosphere would 
hesitate long, before investing $25,000 in a steamboat that was 
foreordained to the scrap pile at the end of five summers ; or where 
one out of every two was as certainly predestined to go up in smoke 
or down into the mud of the river bottom at the end of four years 
— these periods representing the ordinary life of a Mississippi River 
steamboat. 

From 1849 to 1862 the shipyards of the Ohio, where nine out 
of ten Western boats were built, could not keep up with the orders. 
Every available shipwright was employed, and on some boats gangs 
worked at night by the light of torches at double wages, so great 
was the demand. Every iron foundry was likewise driven to the 
limit to turn out engines, boilers, and other machinery with which 
to give life to the hulls that were growing as if by magic in every 
shipyard. 

If there had not been profit in the business, the captains and 
other river men who gave orders for these craft would not have 
given them. By far the greater number of boats were built for 
individual owners — practical river men who navigated the boats, 
and who knew just what they were about. Many of the orders 
were given to replace vessels that had been snagged or burned 
within the past twenty-four hours — for time was money, and a 
man could not afford to be without a steamboat many weeks, when 
twenty weeks or less represented a new boat in net earnings. 



i62 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

These men knew from actual experience that if they could keep 
their craft afloat for two years they could build a new boat from 
the profits made with her, even if she sank or burned at the end 
of that time. If she kept afloat for four years, they could buy or 
build two or three new ones from the profits, even without the aid 
of insurance. As a matter of fact the boats carrying insurance in 
those days were the exceptions. It came high, and owners pre- 
ferred to take their own chances rather than indulge to any great 
extent in that luxury. How such profits were earned and such 
results obtained, it will be the object of this chapter to disclose. 

In those days every boat made money. A big and fast one 
made a great deal; those small and slow made little as compared 
with their larger rivals, but plenty as compared with their own 
cost. Perhaps most vessel owners began on a small scale. A 
little boat might cost $5,000. She would run on some tributary 
of the Great River, and in the absence of any railroads might 
control all the traffic she was capable of handling, and at her own 
rates. In the course of two or three years her owner was able 
to build a bigger and a better boat. By combining with some 
other river man, the two might build one costing $25,000, and 
carrying from a hundred and fifty to two hundred tons of freight, 
and passengers in proportion. With such an equipment there 
was a fortune in sight at any time between 1849 and 1862, pro- 
vided always that the boat was not snagged or burned on her first 
trip. 

The doctrine (or science) of averages, is peculiar. In order 
to get an average of four years for a steamboat's life, it is neces- 
sary to keep some of them afloat for nine or ten; while on the 
other hand you are certain to "kill" a lot of them within a year 
after they touch water. When the latter happens, the investment 
is lost and the owner is probably ruined. 

For purposes of illustration we will take as a sample one 
from the best class of money-makers on the upper river, in the 
flush times of 1857. Minnesota was organized as a territory in 
1849, and admitted as a state in 1858. From 1852 to 1857 there 
were not boats enough to carry the pedple who were flocking into 
this newly-opened farmers' and lumbermen's paradise. There 
were over a hundred and twenty-five different steamboats regis- 
tered at St. Paul in the latter year. The boats carrying good 



STEAMBOAT BONANZAS 



163 



cargoes all through the season were the money-makers. Some of 
the larger ones were unable to get over the sand-bars after the 
midsummer droughts began. The stern-wheel boat of two hun- 
dred to three hundred tons was the one that could handle a good 
cargo on little water, and represented the highest type of profit- 
earning craft. 

Such a boat would be about 200 feet long, 30 feet beam, 
and five feet depth of hold. She would have three large iron 
boilers (steel not having entered largely into boiler construction 
at that time), and fairly large engines, giving her good speed 
without an excessive expenditure for fuel. She would cost from 
$25,000 to $30,000, and accommodate two hundred cabin passen- 
gers comfortably, with a hundred second-class people on deck. 

With such a boat furnished and ready for business, it is the 
duty of the captain to go out and hire his crew, and fit her 
out for a month's work. Such an investment in 1857, o" the 
upper river, would approximate the following figures: 

Per month 



Captam 
Chief clerk . 
Second clerk 








$ 300.00 
200.00 
100.00 


Chief mate . 








200.00 


Second mate 








100.00 


Pilots (2 at $500.00) 








1,000.00 


Chief engineer 








200.00 


Second engineer 

Firemen (8 at $50.00) . 

Steward 








150.00 
400.00 
200.00 


Carpenter 

Watchman 

Deck hands (40 at $50.00) 

Cabin crew 








150.00 

50.00 

2,000.00 

800.00 


Food supplies ($75.00 per day, 
Wood (25 cords per day, 30 da 
Sundries 


30 da 

ys, at 


's) 
$2.50 


) 


2,250.00 
2,000.00 
1,400.00 



$11,500.00 

With this wage-list and expense-account before them, the 
captain and his chief clerk, who may also be a part owner in 



i64 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

the boat, are face to face with the problem of meeting such ex- 
penses from passenger and cargo lists, and at the same time 
providing a sinking fund with which to build another craft 
within four years. To the uninitiated this would seem a some- 
what appalling problem; with these old hands, the question would 
no doubt resolve itself down to the number of round trips that 
they would have to make to pay for their boat. The question of 
years never enters their heads. 

In 1857 there were three principal points of departure on 
the upper river, above St. Louis. At that time St. Louis itself 
was the great wholesale centre, but it was not so important as an 
initial point for passengers for the upper Mississippi. The flood 
of immigration from St. Louis was for many reasons up the 
Missouri: furs and gold could be found in the mountains; there 
was a possible slave state in the farming regions below the moun- 
tains. The people who settled Minnesota and northern Wis- 
consin came from the East, and reached the river at three points 
— Rock Island, Dunleith (or Galena), and Prairie du Chien. 
Taking the point with which I am most familiar, we will start the 
new boat from Galena. 

At that time Galena was, next to St. Louis, the principal 
wholesale entrepot in the West. It was a poor trip for the boat 
which I have taken as a model, when she did not get a hundred 
tons of freight at Galena from the wholesale houses there. The 
balance was found at Dunleith, the terminus of what is now the 
Illinois Central Railway (then the Galena & Western Union) ; 
at Dubuque, which was also a big wholesale town ; and at Prairie 
du Chien, the terminus of the Milwaukee & Mississippi Railway. 

The freight rates on the river ran from 25 cents per hundred 
for short distances, to $1.50 per hundred from Galena to Still- 
water, or St. Paul. No package was taken at less than 25 
cents, however small it was, or how short the distance. In order 
not to overstate, we will take fifty cents per hundred as the aver- 
age, and three hundred tons of cargo as the capacity of the two 
hundred-ton boat. ^ This is relatively the capacity of a vessel of 
that tonnage after deducting for passengers and fuel, and the 



6 A boat measuring 200 tons would carry from 300 to 350 tons weight 
in cargo. The tonnage of all boats is given by measurement, while the 
cargo is always in hundredweights. 



L. H. MERR'CK 



L. H. MERRICK & CO. 

STORAGE FORWARDING AND COMMISSICN 

STKAMliOAT .^- KXPKFSS AOKNTS. 



REPtREMCES. 



AlcXilil.Jrr lir 

O. T. >!.,■ , 

McCov k )l.,i 



-:-- . ^ ._ ^ - - - :' .._ . 


■ 






Ro>^rn :, Trip 


1 

1 


1 STKAMER 

CABIN PASSAGE l . 


: 




<^^y'"- 




"" '--_, . -' ■' • r|,.|k. 

'^ Cabin Passage '■' 


Room _ Tri|).^. 

! 

A._ - - 

I'MRK. 






li 




i 



Galena, Dunleith& Minnesota Packet Co. i ?! 

I STEAMER KATE CASSEL I 

£ CAPTAJNJ^. I-:. OKAY. ^T 

DXJBUQUE. I 

'7?oom iS'b Trip No ,... ?i 

O. G. HARGUS, C/.;/. . i 



Facsimiles of Eari,v Tickets and Business Card. 



STEAMBOAT BONANZAS 



[67 



space occupied by deck passengers. This latter item did not 
seriously count, for the freight was usually taken first and the 
deck passengers were then piled on top of it. Their comfort or 
convenience was never taken into consideration. 

The boat can carry two hundred cabin passengers, and a 
hundred on deck. We will assume that there is another boat 
competing for this trip, and we do not fill up to the capacity. 
The clerk studies the rate sheets in vogue in 1857, and finds 
the following: 

UP-STREAM RATES 



30 miles or under (no charge less than 25c) 
30 to 60 miles ..... 
Over 60 miles ..... 



6c per mile 
5c per mile 
4c per mile 



Galena or Dunleith to — 

Cassville 

Prairie du Chien 

La Crosse 

Red Wing . 

Stillwater and St. Paul 



Miles Cabin passage Deck passage 
30 $ 2.00 $1 .25 

66 3.50 2.00 

150 6.00 3.25 

256 10.00 3.50 

321 12.00 6.00 



Galena or Dunleith to St. Paul 321 
Prairie du Chien to St. Paul 255 
La Crosse to St. Paul . 175 



$ 1 2 . 00 

10.00 

7.00 



$6.00 
5.00 
4.00 



In 1904, the cabin passage on the Diamond Jo Line boats 
from Dunleith to St. Paul, was $8.00; from Prairie du Chien, 
$6.75 ; from La Crosse, $4.75. This is in competition with six 
railroads practically paralleling the river. In 1857 there was no 
railroad competition, and practically none from steamboats. Every 
boat attained a full passenger list, and was at liberty to charge 
whatever the conscience of the captain dictated — assuming a 
conscience. I have known a boat to fill up at Dunleith at the 
rate of $16.00 to St. Paul, and contract that all the men should 
sleep on the cabin floor, leaving staterooms for the women. And 
the passengers were glad enough to accept such conditions, for a 
detention of two days at Dunleith would cost a far greater sum 
than the overcharge exacted by the steamboat officers. 

In the foregoing table I have included La Crosse, which, 



i68 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

however, was not an active factor in river rates until 1859. Be- 
fore then, hundreds of passengers were landed there from Rock 
Island, Dunleith, and Prairie du Chien; but as the railroad had 
not yet reached the river at that point, there were but few pas- 
sengers from La Crosse for landings farther up the river. When 
our boat leaves Prairie du Chien, then, the following business is 
in sight: 

150 passengers from Dunleith or Galena, at an average 

of $8.00 ...... $1,200.00 

50 deck passengers at an average of $5.00 . . 250. 00 

300 tons freight, 6,000 cwts. at an average of 50c 3,000.00 



$4,450.00 



A boat leaving Galena on Friday evening usually arrived at 
St. Paul in time to have her cargo all ashore and ready to start 
on the return trip sometime on Tuesday — usually about noon. 
At that time we shall find the chief clerk studying the down- 
stream rate sheets. These differ somewhat from the up-stream 
and are like this, a few principal points being taken to illustrate: 

DOWN-STREAM RATES 



30 miles or under (no 


charge less than 


25c.) . 


5c per mile 


30 to 60 miles 








4c per mile 


Over 60 miles 


PER 




Z!abin passage 


3c per mile 


St. Paul or Stillwa 


TO — Miles ( 


Deck passage 


Hastings 




32 


$1.50 


$1.00 


Red Wing 




65 


2.50 


2.00 


Winona 




146 


4-50 


2.50 


La Crosse 




175 


5.00 


3.00 


Prairie du Chien . 




255 


7.00 


3-50 


Dunleith or Galena . 




321 


8.00 


4.00 



Down-stream rates are somewhat less than the up-stream, 
because, for one reason, it costs less to get a boat downstream. 
There is a four-mile current pushing the boat along, in addition 
to the applied power. Going upstream the boat had had this 
current to overcome before she gained an inch. A four-mile 
current is one-third of an average steamboat's progress. Again, 



STEAMBOAT BONANZAS 169 

the passengers do not get a chance to eat as much, and very often 
they were not served as well, on the down trip. Then, there 
were fewer people who wished to go down river, with the result 
that there were many boats bidding for the patronage of those 
who did make the trip. All these elements, with possibly others, 
entered into the cutting of the rates by about one-third on the 
down trip. 

The only item besides passengers to be depended upon on the 
return trip, was wheat. There may have been some potatoes or 
barley, or, if fortune favored, some tons of furs and buffalo robes 
from the "Red River train", or some flour from the one mill at St. 
Anthony (now Minneapolis), or perhaps woodenware from the 
same point. There was always a more or less assorted cargo, but 
the mainstay was wheat. We will assume, in order to simplify 
this illustration, that there was nothing but wheat in sight at the 
time. There was no question about getting it. Every boat got 
all the wheat it could carry, and the shippers begged, almost on 
bended knees, for a chance to ship five hundred sacks, or a hun- 
dred, or fifty — any amount would be considered a great favor. 
Wheat was shipped at that time in two-bushel sacks, each weighing 
a hundred and twenty pounds. Three hundred tons, dead weight, 
is a pretty good cargo for a two-hundred ton boat. Wheat is dead 
weight, and a boat goes down into the water fast, when that is the 
sole cargo. We get five thousand sacks, all of which is unloaded 
at Prairie du Chien. The down trip foots up somewhat like this: 

80 passengers at $8.00 .....$ 640.OO 
5,000 sacks of wheat at 12c . . . . 600.00 



$1,240.00 



Arriving in Galena Friday morning, the clerk figures up his 
receipts with the following result : 

Up trip $4,450.00 

Down trip ....... 1,240.00 



$5,690.00 



The boat makes four trips during the month, leaving out the 
extra two or three days, which may have been spent on some sand- 



170 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

bar. At the end of the month the clerk again does some figuring, 
with this result: 

Income from four trips, at $5,690.00 . . . $22,760.00 

Less wages, fuel, provisions, etc. . . . 11,500.00 



Net profit for month ..... $11,260.00 

A stern-wheel, light-draught boat such as we have taken 
for this illustration, was quite certain to get five months' service — 
between the middle of April and the middle of October. In 
order not to put too great tension upon the credulity of modern 
readers, we will assume that she gets only five months of naviga- 
tion. At the close of the season the captain and his clerk figure 
up the receipts and expenses, and strike a balance like this: 

Receipts, 5 months, at $22,760.00 . . . $113,800.00 

Expenses, 5 months, at $11,500.00 . . . 57,500.00 



Net earnings for the season .... $ 56,300.00 

This is enough to buy a new boat, and have something over 
for pin money. No one knows better than the writer the elusive- 
ness, not to say the mendacity, of figures. He has often figured 
out greater profits than this in the nebulous schemes which have 
from time to time seduced him from the straight and narrow 
path of six per cent investment — and had them come out the 
other way. In steamboating in the fifties, this occurred very 
often. The most careful captain, employing the highest-priced 
pilots and engineers, would often lose his boat the first season ; 
a snag or a lighted match, or a little too much steam, dissipating 
the best-laid plans in a few minutes of time. But the figures 
given above are conservative — made so purposely. The truth 
lies at the opposite extreme. 

If the books of some of the boats of the old Minnesota 
Packet Company could be resurrected, they would show earnings 
and profits far greater than I have ventured to claim in my illus- 
tration. The "Fanny Harris", for instance, was a boat of 279 
tons. Her wage-list and expense-account have been taken as 
a basis of the illustration above given, partly from recollection, and 
partly from figures which I made when I was second clerk, and 
which I have had before me in writing this chapter. We used 



STEAMBOAT BONANZAS 



to tow one barge all the time — most of the time two barges, and 
both boat and barges loaded to the water line, both ways, nearly 
every trip. 

Of course we sometimes missed it. We landed ten thousand 
sacks of wheat at Prairie du Chien on one trip. Instead of a hun- 
dred and fifty cabin passengers, she often carried three hundred, 
"sleeping them" on the cabin floor three deep — at stateroom rates; 
and under such conditions the fortunate winners of such a chance to 
get into the promised land have risen up and called the whole outfit 
blessed, when in fact it was the other thing. I have heard of other 
boats claiming that they had to tow an extra barge to carry the 
money which they took in on the trip. I have always thought 
that these men were slightly overstating the case — but maybe not. 

An item in one of the St. Paul papers of the time, states that 
the "Excelsior" arrived from St. Louis November 20, 1852, with 
two hundred and fifty cabin passengers, one hundred and fifty 
deck passengers, and three hundred tons of freight. For which 
freight she received "one dollar per hundred for any distance"; 
and the net profits of the up trip on freight alone were over 
$8,000. For two hundred and fifty cabin passengers she would 
receive $16 each, or $4,000; for the deck passengers, $8 each, 
or $1,200, These sums added to the $8,000 received for freight, 
would aggregate $13,200. The "Excelsior" cost not to exceed 
$20,000 — probably not over $16,000. Two trips like this would 
build a better boat. As this was the last trip of the season, she 
probably did not get such another. Under that freight rate — 
"one dollar per hundred for any distance" — a shipment of a 
hundred pounds from Prescott to Point Douglass, one mile, would 
cost the shipper a dollar. There were possibilities in such con- 
ditions. 

Another item, also from a St. Paul paper, states that the 
"Lady Franklin" arrived May 8, 1855, from Galena, with five 
hundred passengers. She would accommodate a hundred and fifty 
cabin people, ordinarily. Figure this trip down to the probabilities, 
and the net result would be about as follows : 

300 cabin passengers at $12 . . . . . $3,600 

200 deck passengers at $6 . . . . . 1,200 



$4,800 



172 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

Or, reversing it: 

200 cabin passengers at $12 . . . . . $2,400 

300 deck passengers at $6 . . . . . 1,800 



$4,200 



The "Lady Franklin" cost about $20,000, Two months' 
work at this rate would buy a new and better boat. If I remem- 
ber aright, the "Lady Franklin" was sunk in 1856 or 1857, 
but not until she had earned money enough to buy two new boats, 
each costing twice as much as she did. At the time she carried 
five hundred passengers she undoubtedly carried a full cargo of 
freight, worth at least two thousand dollars more to the boat. 

An item in a St. Louis paper of that date, announces the 
departure of the side-wheel steamer "Tishomingo" (Jenks, mas- 
ter), for St. Paul on April 14, 1857, with 465 cabin passengers, 
93 deck passengers and 400 tons of assorted freight. This trip 
would figure somewhat like this: 

465 cabin passengers at an average of $16 . . $7,440.00 

93 deck passengers at an average of $8 . . 744.00 

400 tons freight at 75c per hundred . . . 6,000.00 



$14,184.00 



These rates are estimated at a very low figure. The regular 
cabin rate at that time, St. Louis to St. Paul, was, for cabin, 
$24; deck, $12; freight, $1.50 per hundredweight. It is not 
necessary to amplify at all. The "Tishomingo" had been bought 
in the spring of 1857, within a month, for $25,000. She paid 
one-half her purchase price on her first trip that season. 

I would not have it understood that all boats made these 
phenomenal earnings; but many boats did, and all those of the 
Minnesota Packet Company were in this favored class. There 
were several conditions precedent, which made these results pos- 
sible with the boats of this line. It controlled, absolutely, the 
freighting from the Galena and Dubuque jobbing houses; it con- 
trolled, absolutely, the freight business of the Dunleith and Prairie 
du Chien railroads, and practically all the passenger business of 
the two roads, as steamboat tickets were sold on the train, good 
only on the boats of the Minnesota Packet Company. These 



STEAMBOAT BONANZAS 173 

conditions insured a full cargo for every boat, and a full passen- 
ger list every trip. Outside boats did not have such a "cinch", 
but each had a source of revenue of its own, equally satisfactory. 
Even the "wild" boats had no difficulty in getting cargoes, and 
every vessel in that busy era had all the business it could handle. 
The term "Company" was something of a misnomer. It was 
not at first a stock company, in the modern sense of the word. 
Each boat was owned by its captain, or a number of persons 
acting individuall3^ In organizing the company, instead of cap- 
italizing it with a certain amount of stock, the controlling parties 
simply put in their steamboats and pooled their earnings. Each 
boat had an equal chance with all the others for a cargo; and 
when the dividends were declared each one shared according to 
the earnings of his boat. A big boat could earn more than a 
smaller or slower one, and such a boat got a larger percentage 
than the latter. The particular advantage, in fact the only ad- 
vantage, in pooling lay in securing a monopoly of the railroad 
and jobbing business. In order to do this it was necessary to have 
boats enough to handle the business at all times, and to have a 
general manager who would place the craft so as to give the most 
effective service. 

One of the beauties of the pooling system was, that if a 
captain or owner became dissatisfied and desired to pull out, he 
could take his boat and the share of profits due him, and leave 
at any time. A few years later the company was reorganized as 
a joint stock company. After that, if one wished to get out he 
was lucky if he could get clear with the clothes on his back. The 
financiers who controlled fifty-one per cent of the stock retained 
all the steamboats and all the profits. 



Chapter XXII 

Wild-cat Money and Town-sites 

Both of these specimens of natural history were bred, nur- 
tured, and let loose in countless numbers to prey upon the people 
in the early days that witnessed the opening of the Northwestern 
territories to settlement. The wild-cat dollars waxed fat upon 
the blood and brawn of the settlers who had already arrived; 
wild-cat town-sites found ready victims in the thousands of Eastern 
people who desired to better their fortunes, and who lent ready 
ears to the golden tales of unscrupulous promoters, that told of 
wonderful cities in the West, whose only reality was that blazoned 
in the prospectuses scattered broadcast through the East. 

The younger generation, whose only acquaintance with the 
circulating symbols of wealth that we call "money", is confined 
to the decades since the close of the War of Secession, can have 
no idea of the laxity of banking laws of the fifties, in the North- 
western states and territories, nor of the instability of the so- 
called "money" that conprised nine-tenths of the medium of ex- 
change then in use in the West. Nowadays, a bank bill stands for 
its face value in gold, if it be a National Bank issue. If a state 
bank — and bills of this sort are comparatively few in these days — 
they are also guaranteed, in a measure, by the laws of the state 
in which the bank is situated. In the days of which I am writing, 
and especially in the unsettled and troublesome times just before 
the war (from 1856 to 1862), the money that was handled on 
the river in the prosecution of business, except of course the small 
proportion of gold that was still in circulation, had little or no 
backing, either by federal or state enactments. 

A man went into an embryo city, consisting in that day of 
two or three thousand town lots, and from fifty to a hundred 
inhabitants, with an iron box costing twenty-five dollars. In this 



WILD-CAT MONEY AND TOWN-SITES 175 

box he had ten, twenty, or thirty thousand "dollars" in new 
bank bills purporting to have been issued from two, three, or four 
banks doing business in other equally large, populous, and growing 
cities, situated elsewhere in Wisconsin, or preferably in Illinois, 
Indiana, or Michigan. How did he become possessed of all this 
wealth? Was it the savings of years? The iron box was, per- 
haps; perhaps he got trusted for that. The money was not usually 
the savings of any time at all; it was simply printed to order. 

Five or six persons desirous of benefitting their fellow men 
by assisting them in opening their farms and "moving their crops", 
would get together in Chicago, Cincinnati, or St. Louis, wherever 
there was an establishment capable of engraving and printing bank 
bills — and not very elegant or artistic printing was required, or 
desired. These men propose to start as many banks, in as many 
"cities" in the West. They have money enough, each of them, 
to buy a safe, an iron box into which any carpenter could bore 
with an ordinary brace and bit, and enough over to pay for 
the printing of twenty thousand dollars' worth of bills in denom- 
inations of one, two, five and ten dollars. The printing finished, 
each man would sign his own bills as president, and one of the 
others would add the final touch of authenticity by signing a 
fictitious name to the same bills as cashier. Then it was "money". 

But it would have been overloading the credulity of even 
the most gullible denizens of his adopted city to ask them to accept 
his own bills as legal tender; so a swap was made all around, and 
when the requisite amount of shuffling was completed, each man 
had his twenty thousand dollars in bills on four or five banks, 
but none of his own issue. There was a double incentive in this 
transaction: first, it inspired the utmost confidence in the minds 
of the men who were to borrow this money. How could this 
banker who had come among them for their good, have acquired 
this money by any other than legitimate transactions? If it were 
bills on his own bank that he proposed to put into circulation, 
there might be some question as to their guaranty; but he could 
not get this money by merely going to the printing office and order- 
ing it, as he might in case of bills on his own institution. It 
certainly must be good money. Secondly, by distributing his bills 
in as many difiEerent localities as possible, the chances of its never 
being presented for redemption were greatly multiplied; it might 



176 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

be burned, or lost overboard, or worn out, in which case he would 
be just so much ahead, and no questions asked. 

The foregoing may be a somewhat fanciful statement of the 
way in which the bankers proceeded, but in essence it is a true 
picture. They may not have all met in Chicago, or anywhere 
else, to perfect these arrangements, but the arrangements were 
all perfected practically as stated : "You put my bills into circula- 
tion, and I will put out yours; and in each case the exchange will 
greatly assist each and all of us in hoodwinking our victims into the 
belief that it is money, and not merely printed paper which we 
are offering them". 

Equipped with these goods, and with a charter from the 
state in which he proposed to operate — a charter granted for the 
asking, and no questions raised — the banker transports himself 
and his box of money to his chosen field of operations. The news- 
paper which has already been located in the new city heralds 
the coming of Mr. Rothschild, our new banker, more or less def- 
initely hinting at the great wealth lying behind the coming finan- 
cier. A bank building is rented, a sign hung out, and he begins to 
loan his money at five per cent per month on the partially-improved 
farms of his neighbors, or the house and lot of his "city" friends. 
He is a liberal man, and if it is not convenient for you to pay 
the interest as it accrues, he will let it stand — but he does 
not forget to compound it every month. The result is inevitable. 
The debt mounts up with a rapidity that paralyzes the borrower, 
and in the end a foreclosure adds farm and improvements to the 
growing assets of the banker. Within a very few years he is 
the owner of eight or ten of the best farms in the county, and 
perhaps half a dozen houses and lots in the village, and all with 
the investment of less than a hundred dollars invested in printing, 
and an iron box, and without the expenditure of an ounce of 
energy or a legitimate day's work. And the victims break up 
and start anew for the still farther West, to take new farms, to 
be engulfed in the maw^ of other sharks. One may not greatly 
pity the men themselves, for men are born to work and suffer; but 
the women! God pity them. Worn, tired, broken-hearted, they 
must leave that which is dearest to them in all the world, their 
homes, and fare forth again into the wilderness, to toil and suffer, 
and at last, blessed release, to die. 



WILD-CAT MONEY AND TOWN-SITES 179 

And the bankers? They were counted honest. If by any chance 
one of their bills came to hand and was presented for payment 
at the home counter, it was promptly redeemed, sometimes in gold 
or silver, but oftener with another bill on some other bank 
belonging to the syndicate. I personally knew some of these 
bankers. Some of them were freebooters without conscience and 
without shame. Under color of law, they robbed the settlers of 
their lands and improvements, and defied public opinion. Others 
put on a cloak of righteousness; they were leaders in the love- 
feasts and pillars in the church ; and they also had their neighbors' 
lands and improvements. Their descendants are rich and re- 
spected to-day in the communities where their fathers plied their 
iniquitous trade; and these rule where their fathers robbed. 

As a clerk on the river, I had some experience in handling 
the wild-cat money. At Dunleith, before starting on the up-river 
trip, we were handed by the secretary of the company, a Thomp- 
son's Bank Note Detector, and with it a list of the bills that we 
might accept in payment for freight or passage. We were also 
given a list of those that we might not accept at all; and still 
another list upon which we might speculate, at values running from 
twenty-five to seventy-five per cent of their face denominations. 
Thus equipped we started upstream, and the trouble started with 
us. At McGregor we put off a lot of freight, and were tendered 
money. We consulted our lists and cast into outer darkness that 
which had upon it the anathema of Mr. Jones, the secretary. We 
accepted all on the list of the elect, and compromised upon enough 
more to balance our freight account. The agent at McGregor 
had a list of his own which partly coincided with ours but in 
general disagreed. In the meantime another boat of our line had 
arrived from up river, and we get from her clerk fifteen or twenty 
lists of bills which would be taken or rejected at as many landings 
above. This helps somewhat, as we see our way clear to get rid 
of some of our twenty-five per cent stuff at par in exchange for 
cord wood or stores on the upper river, and we sort our stock out 
into packages which are reported current at each landing. We also 
see an opportunity to swap at Dunleith some bills which are not 
current there at all, but which are taken at par at Prescott or Still- 
water, for other bills which they do not want but which will be 
taken at the company's office at Dunleith in settlement of our trip. 



i8o THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

It required a long head to figure it out. Mine was long 
enough, but unfortunately it had the same dimensions both ways, 
and was not to be depended upon in these finer transactions. Mr. 
Hargus labored with the problem, studying lists until he came 
nigh to the point of insanity, with the result that when we "cashed 
in" on our return it was usually found that we had from five hun- 
dred to a thousand dollars that was not acceptable. This we kept, 
and the boat was debited with the amount on the company's books. 
On the next trip we would usually be able to work off some of 
this stuff. At the end of one season I recollect that we had some 
two thousand dollars, face estimate, of this paper on hand, which 
the treasurer would not accept, for the banks on which the bills 
were drawn had gone out of existence. 

The town-site industry was on the same plane of deception 
and robbery as the banking frauds, but it found its victims "back 
East", instead of close at hand. Being Easterners, who had been 
educated to suppose that integrity and honesty were the basis of 
all business confidence, and themselves practiced these old-fashioned 
virtues, they all too readily accepted the assurances of the land- 
sharks, and invested their money without seeing the property 
which was so glowingly described in the prospectuses sent out by 
the Western promoters. The result was, that they were "taken 
in and done for" by the hundreds of town-site sharks who were 
operating all along the river, between Dunleith and St. Paul. I 
shall refer to but one of which I had personal knowledge, and to 
another described to me by Captain Russell Blakeley. 

The city of Nininger, as delineated on the large and beauti- 
fully-engraved and printed maps issued by Ingenuous Doemly, was 
a well-built metropolis capable of containing ten thousand people. 
As delineated, it had a magnificent court house, this city being 
the county seat of Dakota County, Minnesota. Four or five 
church spires sprang a hundred feet each into the atmosphere. 
It had stores and warehouses, crowded with merchandise, and 
scores of drays and draymen were working with feverish energy 
to keep the levee clear of the freight being landed from half a 
dozen well-known steamboats belonging to the Minnesota Packet 
Company or the St. Louis & St. Paul Packet Company. An 
imposing brick structure with cut stone trimmings, four stories 
high, housed the plant of the Nininger Daily Bugle. 



WILD-CAT MONEY AND TOWN-SITES i8i 

This last-mentioned feature of the prospectus was the only 
one that had the remotest semblance of foundation in fact. There 
certainly was a Daily Bugle, issued once a week, or once in two 
or three weeks, depending upon the energy of the printer and his 
"devil", who jointly set the type, and the assiduity of the editors 
who furnished them with copy. This paper was printed upon the 
first power press that ever threw off a printed sheet in the Terri- 
tory of Minnesota. It was a good press, and the paper printed 
upon it was a monument to the shrewdness and ingenuity of the 
honorable proprietor of the Nininger town-site. The sheet was 
filled with a wealth of local advertising — drygoods, groceries, 
hardware, millinery, shoe stores, blacksmith shops — every class 
of business found in a large and prosperous city, was represented 
in those columns. But every name and every business was ficti- 
tious, coined in the fertile brain of this chief of all promoters. It 
was enough to deceive the very elect — and it did. When the 
Eastern man read that there were six or eight lots, lying just 
west of Smith & Jones's drygoods store, on West Prairie Street, 
that could be had at a thousand dollars per lot if taken quickly, 
and that they were well worth twice that money on account of 
the advantageous situation, they were snapped up as a toad snaps 
flies on a summer day. 

The paper was filled with local reading matter, describing 
the rush at the opening of the latest emporium; that Brown had 
gone East to purchase his spring stock; that Mrs. Newbody 
entertained at her beautiful new residence on Park Avenue, and 
gave the names of fifty of her guests. The whole thing was the 
plan of a Napoleonic mind, being carried out to the minutest 
detail with painstaking care by a staff of able workers, with 
the result that the whole prairie for two miles back from the 
river was sold out at the rate of ten thousand dollars an acre 
or upwards, and that before the proprietor had himself perfected 
his legal rights to the land which he was thus retailing. 

Henry Lindergreen, the printer who did the mechanical 
work on the Nininger paper, was a chum of mine, we having 
set type in the same "alley" elsewhere, and that winter I went 
up to Nininger to help him out. The four-story brick block 
of the wood-cuts shrunk into a little frame building, the sides 
of which were made of inch boards set up on end and battened 



i82 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

on the outside. Inside, it was further reinforced with tarred 
paper; and while I was there a pail of water ten feet from a red- 
hot stove, froze solid in a night, and the three printers had all 
they could do to feed the fire fast enough to keep themselves from 
freezing also, with the mercury down to forty degrees below 
zero. The editor who, in the absence of the promoter himself, 
in the East disposing of lots, was hired to improvise facts 
for the columns of this veracious sheet, lived in St. Paul, and sent 
his copy down to Hastings, as there was no postoffice at Nininger. 
If the editor or the proprietor had been found at Nininger in 
the following spring when the dupes began to appear, one or 
two of the jack oaks with which the city lots were plentifully 
clothed, would have borne a larger fruit than acorns. Even the 
printer who set the type, was forced to flee for his life. 

One of the boldest-faced swindles I ever heard of, was the 
so-called Rolling Stone colony. In the spring of 1852, some 
three or four hundred people, chiefly from New York city, came 
to seek their purchased lands in Rolling Stone. They brought 
with them beautiful maps and bird's-eye views of the place, show- 
ing a large greenhouse, lecture hall, and library. Each colonist 
was to have a house lot in town and a farm in the neighboring 
country. The colony had been formed by one William Haddock, 
and none of the members had the faintest shadow of experience 
in farming. Boarding steamers at Galena, they expected to be 
put off at the Rolling Stone levee, for the views represented large 
houses, a hotel, a big warehouse, and a fine dock. But the steam- 
boat officers had never heard of such a place. Careful question- 
ing, however, seemed to locate the site three miles above Wabasha 
Prairie, on land then belonging to the Sioux Indians. As they 
insisted on landing, they were put off at the log cabin of one 
John Johnson, the only white man within ten miles. They made 
sod houses for themselves, or dug shelter burrows in the river 
banks; sickness came; many died during the summer and autumn; 
and when winter set in the place was abandoned. The people 
suffered severely, and the story of Rolling Stone makes a sad 
chapter in the early history of Minnesota. 

While the craze was on, some made fortunes, while thousands 
of trusting men and women lost the savings of years. After the 
fever of speculation had burned itself out, the actual builders 



WILD-CAT MONEY AND TOWN-SITES 183 

of the commonwealth came in and subdued the land. Ninlnger 
and Rolling Stone are still on the map, and that is about all there 
is of them — a name. La Crosse, Winona, St, Paul and Minne- 
apolis have superseded them, and the population, wealth, and 
commerce of these are greater in reality than were the airy figments 
of the brain which they have supplanted. 



Chapter XXIII 

A Pioneer Steamboatman 

The same year and the same month in the year that wit- 
nessed the advent of the first steamboat on the Upper Mississippi, 
likewise witnessed the arrival in Galena of one who was destined 
to become the best known of all the upper river steamboatmen. 
In April, 1823, James Harris ^ accompanied by his son, Daniel 
Smith Harris, a lad of fifteen, left Cincinnati on the keel boat 
"Colonel Bumford", for the Le Fevre lead mines (now Galena), 



7 Captain Daniel Smith Harris was born in the state of Ohio in i8o8. 
He came with his parents to Galena, 111., in 1823, where he attended the 
frontier schools, and worked in the lead mines until 1836, when he com- 
menced his career as a steamboatman, which was developed until he 
should become known as the greatest of all the upper river steamboat 
owners and captains. In the year 1836, in company with his brother, R. 
Scribe Harris, who was a practical engineer, he built the steamer "Fron- 
tier," which he commanded that season. In 1837 the two brothers brought 
out the "Smelter," which was commanded by Daniel Smith Harris, Scribe 
Harris running as chief engineer. In 1838 they built the "Pre-Emption," 
which was also run by the two brothers. In 1839 they built the "Relief," 
and in 1840 the "Sutler," both of which he commanded. In 1841 they 
brought out the "Otter," which Captain Harris commanded until 1844, 
when the two brothers built the "War Eagle" (first), which he com- 
manded until 1847. In 1848 he commanded the "Senator"; in 1849 the "Dr. 
Franklin No. 2"; in 1850 and 1851 the "Nominee"; in 1852 the "Luella," 
"New St. Paul" and "West Newton"; in 1853 the "West Newton"; 1854, 
1855 and 1856 the "War Eagle" (second), which he built. (See picture 
of "War Eagle" on page 120.) In 1857 Captain Harris built the "Grey 
Eagle," the largest, fastest and finest boat on the upper river up to that 
time, costing $63,000. He commanded the "Grey Eagle" until 1861, when 
she was lost by striking the Rock Island Bridge, sinking in five minutes. 
Captain Harris then retired from the river, living in Galena until his 
death in 189-. As a young man he took part, as a Lieutenant of Volunteers, 
in the battle of Bad Axe, with the Indians under Chief Black Hawk. 



A PIONEER STEAMBOATMAN 185 

where they arrived June 20, 1823, after a laborious voyage down 
the Ohio and up the Mississippi. 

A word in passing, regarding the keel boat. Few of the 
men now living know from actual observation what manner of 
craft is suggested by the mere mention of the name. None of 
this generation have seen it. A canal boat comes as near it in 
model and build as any craft now afloat; and yet it was not a 
canal boat. In its day and generation it was the clipper of the 
Western river to which it was indigenous. Any sort of craft 
might go downstream; rafts, arks, broadhorns, and scows were 
all reliable down-stream sailers, dependent only upon the flow 
of the current, which was eternally setting toward the sea. All 
of this sort of craft did go down, with every rise in the Ohio, in the 
early days of the nineteenth century, from every port and landing 
between Pittsburg and Cairo, to New Orleans. They were laden 
with adventurers, with pioneers, wnth settlers, or with produce 
of the farms already opened along the Ohio and its tributaries; 
corn, wheat, apples, live-stock — "hoop-poles and punkins", in 
the slang of the day — in fact anything of value to trade for the 
merchandise' of civilization which found its entrepot at New 
Orleans from Europe or the Indies. The craft carrying this 
produce was itself a part of the stock in trade, and when unloaded 
was broken up and sold as lumber for the building of the city, 
or for export to Cuba or other West Indian ports. The problem 
was to get back to the Ohio with the cargo of merchandise bought 
with the produce carried as cargo on the down trip. The broad 
horns and arks were an impossibility as up-stream craft, and thus 
it came about in the evolution of things required for specific pur- 
poses, that the keel boat came into being. 

This boat was built to go upstream as well as down. It was 
a well-modelled craft, sixty to eighty feet long, and fifteen to 
eighteen feet wide, sharp at both ends, and often with fine lines — 
clipper-built for passenger traffic. It had usually about four feet 
depth of hold. Its cargo box, as it was called, was about four 
feet higher, sometimes covered with a light curved deck; some- 
times open, with a "gallows-frame" running the length of the 
hold, over which tarpaulins were drawn and fastened to the sides 
of the boat for the protection of the freight and passengers in 
stormy weather. At either end of the craft was a deck for eight 



i86 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

or ten feet, the forward or forecastle deck having a windlass 
or capstan for pulling the boat off bars, or warping through swift 
water or over rapids. 

Along each side of the cargo box ran a narrow walk, about 
eighteen inches in width, with cleats nailed to the deck twenty- 
eight or thirty inches apart, to prevent the feet of the crew from 
slipping when poling upstream. Of the motive power of these 
boats. Captain H. M. Chittenden, U. S. A., in a recent work 
on the navigation of the Missouri River in early days, says: 

"For the purposes of propulsion the boat was equipped with nearly all 
the power appliances known to navigation, except steam. The cordelle 
was the main reliance. This consists of a line nearly a thousand feet 
long, fastened to the top of a mast which rose from the centre of the 
boat to the height of nearly thirty feet. The boat was pulled along with 
this line by men on shore. In order to hold the boat from swinging 
around the mast, the line was connected with the bow of the boat by 
means of a "bridle", a short auxiliary line fastened to a loop in the 
bow, and to a ring through which the cordelle was passed. The bridle 
prevented the boat from swinging under force of wind or current when 
the speed was not great enough to accomplish this purpose by means of 
the rudder. The object in having so long a line was to lessen the tendency 
to draw the boat toward the shore; and the object in having it fastened 
to the top of the mast was to keep it from dragging, and to enable it to 
clear the brush along the bank. It took from twenty to forty men to 
cordelle the keel boat along average stretches of the river [the Missouri], 
and the work was always one of great difficulty." 

For poling the men were provided with tough ash poles, 
eighteen or twenty feet long, with a wooden or iron shoe or 
socket to rest on the bottom of the river, and a crutch or knob 
for the shoulder. In propelling the boat, ten or a dozen men 
on each side thrust the foot of their poles into the bottom of the 
river, and with the other end against their shoulders, walked 
toward the stern of the boat, pushing it upstream at the same 
rate of speed with which they walked toward the stern. As 
each pair — one on each side of the boat — reached the stern, 
they quickly recovered their poles, leaped to the roof of the cargo 
box, and running forward jumped to the deck and replanted their 
poles for a new turn of duty. By this means an even speed was 
maintained, as in a crew of twenty there were always sixteen 
men applying motive power, while four others were returning to 
the bow for a new start. The writer, in his childhood, has stood 
for hours on the banks of the St. Joseph River, in Niles, Michigan, 



A PIONEER STEAMBOATMAN 187 

watching the crews of keel boats thus laboriously pushing their 
craft up the river from St. Joseph, on the lake, to Niles, South 
Bend, and Mishawaka. They were afterward to float back, 
laden with flour in barrels, potatoes and apples in sacks, and all 
the miscellaneous merchandise of the farm, destined for Detroit, 
BufiFalo, and the East, by way of the Great Lakes. 

In addition to cordelling, as described above, the long line 
was also used in warping the boat around difficult places where 
the men could not follow the bank. This was accomplished by 
carrying the line out ahead in the skifi as far as possible or con- 
venient, and making it fast to trees or rocks. The men on the 
boat then hauled on the line, pulling the boat up until it reached 
the object to which the line was attached. The boat was then 
moored to the bank, or held with the poles until the line was again 
carried ahead and made fast, when the process was repeated. In 
this manner the greatest of up-river steamboatmen. Captain Daniel 
Smith Harris, prosecuted his first voyage from Cincinnati to 
Galena, in the year 1823. It probably required no more than 
four or five days to run down the Ohio, on the spring flood, to 
Cairo; from Cairo to Galena required two months of cordelling, 
poling, and warping. 

About the time the keel boat "Colonel Bumford" was passing 
St. Louis, the steamer "Virginia" departed for the upper river 
with a load of supplies for the United States military post at Fort 
Snelling. She had among her passengers Major John Biddle 
and Captain Joseph P. Russell, U. S. A., and Laurence Tallia- 
ferro. United States Indian Agent for the Territory of Minne- 
sota. The "Virginia" arrived at Fort Snelling May 10, 1823, 
the first boat propelled by steam to breast the waters of the upper 
Mississippi. She was received with a salute of cannon from the 
fort, and carried fear and consternation to the Indians, who 
watched the smoke rolling from her chimney, the exhaust steam 
shooting from her escape pipe with a noise that terrified them. 
The "Virginia" was scarcely longer than the largest keel boat, 
being about a hundred and twenty feet long, and twenty-two 
feet beam. She had no upper cabin, the accommodations for the 
passengers being in the hold, in the stern of the boat, with the 
cargo-box covering so common to the keel boats of which she 
herself was but an evolution. 



THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 



What did the young steamboatman see on his voyage from 
Cairo to Galena in 1823? In his later )'ears, in speaking of this 
trip, he said that where Cairo now stands there was but one log 
building, a warehouse for the accommodation of keel-boat navi- 
gators of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Cape Girardeau, St. 
Genevieve, and Herculaneum were small settlements averaging 
a dozen families each. St. Louis, which was built almost entirely 
of frame buildings, had a population of about five thousand. The 
levee was a ledge of rocks, with scarcely a fit landing place on 
the whole frontage. Alton, Clarksville, and Louisiana were minor 
settlements. What is now Quincy consisted of one log cabin only, 
which was built and occupied by John Woods, who afterwards 
became lieutenant-governor of the State of Illinois, and acting 
governor. This intrepid pioneer was "batching it", being indus- 
triously engaged in clearing a piece of land for farming purposes. 
The only settler at Hannibal was one John S. Miller, a black- 
smith, who removed to Galena in the autumn of 1823. In later 
years, Hannibal was to claim the honor of being the birthplace 
of "Mark Twain", the historian of the lower Mississippi pilot 
clans. The last farm house between St. Genevieve and Galena 
was located at Cottonwood Prairie (now Canton), and was occu- 
pied by one Captain White, who was prominently identified with 
the early development of the Northwest. There was a govern- 
ment garrison at Keokuk, which was then known as Fort Edwards, 
and another at Fort Armstrong, now Rock Island. The settle- 
ment at Galena consisted of about a dozen log cabins, a few 
frame shanties, and a smelting furnace. 

If he were looking only for the evidence of an advancing 
civilization, the above probably covers about all he saw on his 
trip. Other things he saw, however. The great river, flowing 
in its pristine glory, "unvexed to the sea" ; islands, set like emer- 
alds in the tawny flood, the trees and bushes taking on their 
summer dress of green in the warm May sunshine; prairies 
stretching away in boundless beauty, limited only by his powers 
of vision. Later, as his craft stemmed the flood and advanced 
up the river, he saw the hills beginning to encroach upon the 
valley of the river, narrowing his view; later, the crags and 
bastions of the bluffs of the upper river, beetling over the very 



A PIONEER STEAMBOATMAN 189 

channel itself, and lending an added grandeur to the simple beauty 
of the banks already passed. 

His unaccustomed eyes saw the wickyups and tepees of the 
Indians scattered among the islands and on the lowlands, the 
hunters of the tribe exchanging the firelock for the spear and net 
as they sought to reap the water for its harvest of returning fish. 
It was all new to the young traveller, who was later to become 
the best known steamboatman of the upper river, the commander 
of a greater number of different steamboats than any of his 
compeers, and who was to know the river, in all its meanderings 
and in all its moods, better than any other who ever sailed it — 
Daniel Smith Harris, of Galena, Illinois. 



Chapter XXIV 

A Versatile Commander; Wreck of the ^'Equator' 

While some men were to be found on the Mississippi in the 
sixties who did not hesitate to avow themselves religious, and 
whose lives bore witness that they were indeed Christians, the 
combination of a Methodist preacher and a steamboat captain 
was one so incongruous that it was unique, and so far as I know, 
without a parallel on the river. There appeared to be no great 
incompatibility between the two callings, however, as they were 
represented in the person of Captain Asa B, Green. He was a 
good commander, as I had personal opportunity of observing at 
the time of the incident described in this chapter; and a few 
years later, when the great drama of the Civil War was on, I 
again had an opportunity to observe Captain Green in his alternate 
role of minister of the gospel, he having been appointed chaplain 
of the Thirtieth Wisconsin Infantry in which I served as a 
private soldier. In this capacity he showed rare good sense and 
practical wisdom. He preached to the boys when a favorable 
opportunity offered on a Sunday, when there was not too much 
else going on; but his sermons were short, and as practical as 
was the man himself. 

Of his conversion, or early life, on the river as a missionary, 
little seemed to be known by any one whom I ever met. He ran 
the Chippewa in the early days, during the summer months, and 
in the winter did missionary work among the lumbermen, follow- 
ing them to their camps in the woods, preaching and ministering 
to them; not as an alien, and in an academic fashion, but as one 
"to the manner born". It is likely that his young manhood was 
passed on the river and in the lumber camps, and when he was 
converted his thoughts turned naturally to the needs of these 
particular classes, for none knew better than he just how great 



A VERSATILE COMMANDER 191 

their needs were. Of how or where he was ordained to preach 
I know nothing; but as he was in good standing with the Meth- 
odist conference there is no question as to the regularity of his 
commission. His master's certificate authorizing him to command 
a steamboat certified to his standing as a river man. 

Probably he divided his time between commanding a steam- 
boat and preaching the gospel, two callings so dissimilar, because 
the river work was quite remunerative, financially, while the other 
was quite the reverse. It probably took all the money he earned 
during the summer to support himself and his philanthropies 
during the winter. If his expenditures among the boys in the 
lumber camps were as free-handed as were his gifts to poor, sick, 
wounded, and homesick soldiers during his service with the Thir- 
tieth Wisconsin during the war, it would easily require the seven 
months' pay of a river captain to sustain the other five months' 
liberality of the quondam preacher. Certain it is, that after three 
years' service as chaplain he came out as poor as he went in — in 
money. If the respect and high regard of his brother officers were 
worth anything; or better yet, if the love and gratitude of hun- 
dreds of plain boys in blue, privates in the ranks, might be counted 
as wealth, then Captain Green was rich indeed. And that was 
what he did count as real wealth. To be hugged by one of his 
"boys" at a Grand Army reunion, one whom he had nursed back 
to life in an army hospital by his optimistic cheerfulness and 
Christian hope and comfort — was to him better than gold or 
silver. He has gone to his reward ; and whether he now is telling 
the "old, old story" to other men in other spheres, or pacing 
the deck of a spectre steamboat on the River of Life — which- 
ever may be his work — beyond a peradventure he is doing that 
work well. 

In the spring of 1858, in April, in his capacity as captain, 
Asa B. Green was commanding the steamer "Equator". She was 
a stern-wheel boat of about a hundred and twenty tons, plying 
on the St. Croix between Prescott and St. Croix Falls. The 
lake opened early that season, but the opening was followed by 
cold and stormy weather, with high winds. There was some 
sort of celebration at Stillwater, and as was customary in those 
days an excursion was organized at Hastings and Prescott to 
attend the "blow-out". About three hundred people crowded the 



192 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

little steamer, men, women, and children. She started off up 
the lake in the morning, fighting her way against a high wind 
right out of the north. Charley Jewell was pilot, the writer 
was "cub", John Lay was chief engineer. I have forgotten the 
name of the mate, but whatever may have been his name or nation- 
ality, he was the man for the place. He was every inch a man, 
as was the captain on the roof, and so in fact was every officer 
on the boat. 

Everything went well until we had cleared Catfish bar, at 
Afton. From there to Stillwater is about tw^elve miles, due north. 
The wind had full sweep the whole length of this reach. The 
lake is two and a half miles wide just above Catfish bar. The 
sweep of the wind had raised a great sea, and the heavily-laden 
boat crawled ahead into the teeth of the blizzard — for it began 
to snow as well as blow. We had progressed very slowly, under 
an extra head of steam, for about three miles above the bar, when 
the port "rock-shaft", or eccentric rod, broke with a snap, and 
the wheel stopped instantly; in fact, John Lay had his hand on 
the throttle wheel when the rod broke, and in an instant had shut 
off steam to save his cylinders. 

As soon as the wheel stopped the boat fell off into the trough 
of the sea. The first surge caught her on the quarter, before 
she had fully exposed her broadside, but it rolled her lee guards 
under water, and made every joint in her upper works creak 
and groan. The second wave struck her full broadside on. The 
tables had just been set for dinner. As the boat rolled down, 
under stress of wind and wave, the tables were thrown to leeward 
with a crash of broken glass and china that seemed to be the 
end of all things with the "Equator". Women and children 
screamed, and many women fainted. Men turned white, and some 
went wild, scrambling and fighting for life preservers. Several 
persons — they could hardly be called men — had two, and even 
three, strapped about their bodies, utterly ignoring the women 
and children in their abjectly selfish panic. The occasion brought 
out all the human nature there was in the crowd, and some 
that was somewhat baser than human. 

As a whole, however, the men behaved well, and set about 
doing what they could to insure the safety of the helpless ones 
before providing for their own safety. It has always been a 



A VERSATILE COMMANDER 193 

satisfaction to me that I had this opportunity, while a boy, to 
witness and take part in an accident which, while it did not 
result in the loss of a single life, had every element of great 
danger, and the imminent probability of the loss of hundreds of 
lives. It was an object lesson in what constituted manhood, self- 
reliant courage, official faithfulness, and the prompt application 
of ready expedients for the salvation of the boat. 

When the crash came, Mr. Lay called up through the 
speaking-tube, stating the nature and extent of the accident. Mr. 
Jewell reported it to Captain Green, who ordered him to go 
to the cabin and attempt to allay the fright of the passengers, and 
to prevent a panic. As he started, Jewell ordered me to remain 
in the pilot house and listen for calls from the engine-room. 

In the meantime the deck hands, or many of them, were 
in a panic, some of them on their knees on the forecastle, making 
strong vows of religious reformation should they come safe to 
land. This was a commendable attitude, both of body and spirit, 
had there been nothing else to do. In this particular province 
it would seem that much might have been expected from a captain 
who was also a preacher. On the contrary his manner of meeting 
the exigency was decidedly and profoundly out of drawing with 
preconceived notions of what might be expected from such a 
combination. An old man from Prescott, the richest man in 
town, and also one of the meanest, nearly seventy years old, crept 
up the companion way to the upper deck, and clasping Captain 
Green about the legs cried: "Save me! for God's sake save me! 
and I will give you a thousand dollars"! 

"Get away you d d cowardly old cur. Let go of me 

and get down below or I will throw you overboard", was Captain 
Green's exhortation as he yanked him to his feet by his collar and 
kicked him to the stairway. Both tlie language and the action 
were uncanonical in the extreme ; but then, he was acting for 
the time in his capacity as captain, and not as preacher. I didn't 
laugh at the time, for I was doing some thinking on my own 
hook about the salvation business; and my estimate of the chances 
for getting to the shore, two miles away, in that wind and sea, 
was not flattering. I have laughed many times since, however, 
and wondered what the old miser thought of the orthodoxy of 
Chaplain Green when he answered his prayer. 



194 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

The deck hands also met with a surprise from the mate, and 
that in less than a minute. Men think fast in such an emergency, 
especially those schooled amid dangers and quickened in mind and 
body by recurring calls for prompt action. A dozen seas had 
not struck the "Equator" before the mate was on the forecastle, 
driving the panic-stricken deck hands to work. Dropping the two 
long spars to the deck, with the assistance of the carpenter and 
such men as had gathered their wits together, he lashed them 
firmly together at each end. Then bending on a strong piece 
of line extending from end to end, and doubled, he made fast 
the main hawser, or snubbing line, to the middle, or bight of the 
rope attached to the spars, and then launched the whole overboard, 
making a "sea-anchor" that soon brought the bow of the vessel 
head to sea, and eased the racking roll of the hull, steadying the 
craft so that there was little further danger of her sinking. In 
the ten or fifteen minutes that it had taken to get the drag built 
and overboard, the waves had swept over the lower deck and into 
the hold, until there was a foot of water weighing her down, 
which the bilge pumps operated by the "doctor" were unable to 
throw out as fast as it came in. Had it continued to gain for 
fifteen minutes longer, the boat would have gone to the bottom 
with all on board. The drag saved the vessel; the coolness and 
quickness of the mate and carpenter were the salvation of the 
steamer and its great load of people. 

In the meantime other incidents were occurring, that made 
a lasting impression upon my mind. I did not witness them 
myself, but I learned of them afterwards. All this time I stood 
at the side of the useless wheel in the pilot house, listening for 
sounds from the engine-room. Mr. Lay was doing all that was 
possible to remedy the break. He cut off the steam from the 
useless cylinder, and with his assistant and the firemen, was at 
work disconnecting the pitman, with the intent to try to work 
the wheel with one cylinder, which would have been an impossi- 
bility in that sea. In fact it would have been impossible under 
any circumstances, for the large wheel of a stern-wheel boat is 
built to be operated by two engines ; there is not power enough In 
either one alone to more than turn it over, let alone driving the 
steamboat. When the crash came, Engineer Lay's wife, who was 
on board as a passenger, ran immediately to the engine-room to be 



A VERSATILE COMMANDER 195 

with her husband when the worst should come. He kissed her 
as she came, and said: "There's a dear, brave, little woman. 
Run back to the cabin and encourage the other women. I must 
work. Good-bye". And the "little woman" — for she was a 
little woman, and a brave little woman, also — without another 
word gave her husband a good-bye kiss, and wiping away the 
tears, went back to the cabin and did more than all the others 
to reassure the frightened, fainting women and little children — 
the very antithesis of the craven old usurer who had crept on his 
knees begging for a little longer lease of a worthless life. 

It took an hour or more to drift slowly, stern first, diagonally 
across and down the lake to the shore above Glenmont, on the 
Wisconsin side, where she struck and swung broadside onto the 
beach. The men carried the women ashore through four feet of 
water, and in another hour the cabin was blown entirely off the 
sunken hull, and the boat was a total wreck. Her bones are 
there to-day, a striking attestation of the power of wind and wave, 
even upon so small a body of water as Lake St. Croix. 

Big fires were built from the wreckage to warm the wet and 
benumbed people. Runners were sent to nearby farm houses for 
teams, as well as to Hudson, seven or eight miles way. Many 
of the men walked hom.e to Prescott and Hastings. Captain 
Green, who owned the boat, stayed with his crew to save what 
he could from the wreck, in which he lost his all; but he had 
only words of thanksgiving that not a life had been lost while 
under his charge. Through it he was cool and cheerful, devoting 
himself to reassuring his passengers, as soon as the drag was in 
place, and giving orders for getting the women and children 
ashore as soon as the boat should strike. His only deviation from 
perfect equipoise was exhibited in his treatment of the old man, 
a notoriously mean, and exacting money-lender, with whom he had 
no sympathy at any time, and no patience at a time like this. 



Chapter XXV 

A Stray Nobleman 

Of the many men whom it was my good fortune to meet 
while on the river as a boy, or as a young man, there was none 
who came nearer to filling the bill as a nobleman than Robert 
C. Eden, whose memory suggests the title of this chapter. Just 
what constitutes a nobleman in the college of heraldry, I am not 
qualified to assert. "Bob" Eden, as his friends fondly called him 
— Captain Eden, as he was known on the river, or Major Eden 
as he was better known in the closing days of the War of Seces- 
sion — was the son of an English baronet. There were several 
other sons who had had the luck to be born ahead of "Bob", 
and his chance for attaining to the rank and title of baronet 
was therefore extremely slim. However, his father was able to 
send him to Oxford, from which ancient seat of learning he was 
graduated with honors. As a }^ounger son he was set apart for 
the ministry, where he finally landed after sowing his wild oats, 
which he did in a gentlemanly and temperate manner that com- 
ported well with the profession for which he was destined, all 
his studies having been along theological lines. The wanderlust 
was in his blood, however, and he declined taking holy orders 
until he had seen something of the unholy world outside. Ac- 
cordingly he took the portion due him, or which his father gave 
him, and departed for Canada. Not finding things just to his 
taste in that British appanage, possibly not rapid enough for a 
divinity student, he promptly crossed the line and began making 
himself into a Yankee, in all except citizenship. 

In his wanderings he finally reached Oshkosh, attracted no 
doubt by the euphony of the name, which has made the little "saw 
dust city of the Fox" one of the best known towns, by title, in 
the world. If there was any one place more than another cal- 







I f i^ 



A STRAY NOBLEMAN 199 

culated to educate and instruct an embryo clergyman in the ways 
of the world, and a particularly wicked world at that, it was 
Oshkosh before the war. That he saw some of the "fun" which 
the boys enjoyed in those days was evidenced by the fund of stories 
relating to that place and that era, which he had in stock in later 
years. 

I do not know how long he remained there on his first 
visit. When I made his acquaintance he was journeying up the 
river by easy stages on a little side-wheel steamer, having both 
wheels on a single shaft — a type of steamboat which I had 
known on the St. Joseph River in Michigan, but which was not 
common on the Mississippi. This class was used on the Fox and 
Wolf Rivers, and on Lake Winnebago. Captain Eden had bought 
this little steamboat, of perhaps eighty tons burden, for the purpose 
of exploring at his leisure the upper Mississippi and its tributaries. 
He had sailed up the Fox River to Portage, through the canal 
to the Wisconsin, and down that stream to the Mississippi, and 
had reached Prescott, where I met him. He wanted to go up the 
St. Croix to the Falls, stopping at all the towns, and at places 
where there were no towns, at his own sweet will. First-class 
pilots were getting six hundred dollars a month wages in those 
days. Eden's boat was not worth two months' pay of such a pilot, 
and he was on the lookout for a cheaper man when he found me. 

His crew consisted of himself, acting in the capacity of 
captain and first and second mates; an engineer and fireman in 
one person ; a deck hand, and a cook. The cook is named last, but 
he was by no means the least personage aboard the "Enterprise". 
As this was a sort of holiday excursion, the cook was about the 
most important official about the boat. He was fully up in his 
business, and could cook all kinds of game and fish to perfection, 
as well as the ordinary viands of civilization. It was a privilege 
to be catered to by this master of his art. The captain had under 
him, therefore, three men, in addition to the pilot for temporary 
service from time to time as he journeyed up the river. The 
"Enterprise" was not a speedy boat. She could make four or 
five miles an hour upstream if the current was not too strong, and 
double that downstream if the current was strong enough. She 
had no upper cabin answering to the "boiler deck" of the river 
boats — only a little box of a pilot house on the roof, big enough 



THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 



to contain a little wheel and the man who turned it. This wheel 
was only about a third the diameter of a real steamboat wheel, 
and instead of wheel-ropes it had chains, large enough for a man- 
of-war. When the wheel was put hard up or hard down, the 
chains responded with a series of groans and squeaks not unmusical, 
but new and novel to one used only to the noiseless operation of 
the well-oiled wheel-ropes of the river steamers. The chains 
were part of the fire-proof outfit required by regulations on the 
great lakes. The "Enterprise" w^as from Winnebago. To pull 
the little three-foot wheel hard down, and hold the stumpy little 
steamer up to a reef from which she wanted to run away, required 
the expenditure of as much muscle as was demanded to cramp a 
four-hundred ton steamer over the same bar by the use of the 
larger wheel and easier-running wheel-ropes. 

The cabin of the "Enterprise" was all aft of the paddle-boxes. 
It was so divided as to afford sleeping quarters for the crew at 
the forward part, next the engine, while Captain Eden occupied 
the after part, which was fitted up as a boudoir, with a little side 
niche, in which he slept. His pointer dog and his retriever also 
slept in the same niche. There was a fine library in the cabin — 
not a great number of books, but the best books, some English, 
some French, some German, and several Greek and Latin, for 
Captain Eden was a polyglot in his reading. There was also a 
gun rack with several rifles, three or four shot guns of big and 
little calibre, and a pair of duelling pistols. Likewise there were 
rods, reels, landing nets, and fly-hooks without number, rubber 
boots and mackintoshes for rough weather, and all the para- 
phernalia of a gentleman sportsman. It was evident at a glance 
that Captain Eden was not in financial straits, and it was equally 
evident that he was not steamboating for profit. 

As I knew the St. Croix River well enough to navigate it 
with a far larger boat than Captain Eden's, and in addition knew 
also a great deal more about the haunts of bear, deer, prairie 
chickens, brook trout, and indeed all species of fish inhabiting the 
waters of the Mississippi River and its tributaries; and further, 
had a speaking and dining acquaintance with sundry red men, 
both Sioux and Chippewa, with whom Captain Eden also wished 
to become acquainted for purposes of original investigation and 
study, I was deemed a valuable acquisition. On my side a rea- 



A STRAY NOBLEMAN 



sonable salary as pilot, with a free run of the guns, fishing tackle, 
and books was an attractive presentation of the case, and it took 
but a short time to arrange the details of an engagement. 

A day's work on this model craft consisted in steering the 
boat five or six miles up or down the river or lake to the most 
inviting hunting or fishing grounds, or to the vicinity of an Indian 
camp, finding a sheltered place in which to tie up, and then taking 
a tramp of ten or a dozen miles after deer, bear, or prairie chickens, 
or a walk of three or four miles up some favorite trout stream, 
and fishing back to the boat. In that day bear and deer abounded 
within a very few miles of Prescott, Hudson, or other points. 
Indeed, as late as 1876 bears were quite common about River Falls, 
one or two having come right into the village to pick up young 
pigs and lambs; and deer were also numerous within a few miles 
of the same place. 

This in itself was an ideal occupation. But added to it was 
the privilege of an intimate association with, and the conversation 
of, a man from across the ocean, whose father was a baronet, who 
had himself been schooled in Oxford, who had lived in London, 
and Paris, and Berlin, and had seen men and things of whom 
and which I had read in books, but which were all very far 
removed from the backwoods farm of Michigan where I was 
born, and from the still wilder surroundings of the upper Missis- 
sippi in the middle fifties. 

I had been a persistent reader from the time I had learned 
my letters, and was now seventeen years old. The volumes to 
which I had had access were principally school books, with here 
and there a history or biography, and an occasional novel. At 
one period only, while working in the printing office, had I the 
run of a well-chosen library belonging to the lawyer-editor. Here, 
however, was something better than books. I could question this 
man on points that the books might have passed over, and he 
could answer. His mind was quick, his powers of observation 
trained, his brain well stored with the lore of books — history, 
poetry, eloquence, and in addition he had seen much of the world 
which lay so far beyond and outside the life of a Western-bred 
country lad. It was better than any school I had ever attended, 
and he was a rare teacher. He didn't realize that he was teach- 
ing, but I did. 



THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 



It was not a case of absorption alone on my part, however. 
In my own field I had much to communicate — the lore of woods 
and streams, the ways of the red men, the moods and legends of 
the Great River, matters which seemed of little value to me, but 
which this stranger from an older civilization was as solicitious to 
hear about as I was to listen to the stories of his larger life. 
While I deemed myself fortunate indeed in making the acquaint- 
ance of this cosmopolitan man of the world, I was pleased to 
know that there were some things that I knew better than my 
more widely-travelled employer. One of these things, insignifi- 
cant in itself, was the fact that the pilot could catch ten trout 
to the captain's one, after giving him all possible advantages of 
first chances at good "holes", and likely riffles, and the first chance 
in wading ahead down the stream. This was for a long time 
one of the mysteries to the captain — why a trout would not bite 
at one man's hook just as readily as at another's, when they were 
exactly alike as to lures, whether natural or artificial. The fact 
remains that there is a difference in the manner in which you 
approach them with the temptation; until you get the "hang of 
the thing" you will not catch the trout that the more astute dis- 
ciple of the good Walton catches out of the same stream, in 
the same hour. 

Thrown together as we both were on board the boat and on 
these excursions, the relation of employer and servant was soon 
forgotten, and the closer and more intimate relation of friend to 
friend was established, a relation which lasted as long as Captain 
Eden remained in America. Two months were passed in idling 
along the St. Croix, in hunting, fishing, exploring, studying the 
beautiful, if not grand, rock formations of the Dalles, and in 
visiting the Indians in their haunts around Wood Lake and the 
upper St. Croix. Then Captain Eden turned the prow of his 
little steamboat toward home, descending the river to Prairie du 
Chien, ascending the Wisconsin, portaging through the canal to 
the Fox, and thence steaming down to Oshkosh. Disposing of his 
steamboat there, he entered the office of the Northwestern news- 
paper, first as a reporter and later as an editorial writer. Not 
many suburban newspapers fifty years ago could boast of an 
Oxonian among their editorial writers. But very few people out- 
side of his immediate friends ever knew that the quiet man who 



A STRAY NOBLEMAN 203 

represented the Northwestern was either an Oxonian or the son 
of an English baronet. 

In the autumn of 1863 the men of the North were gathering 
themselves together for the mightiest struggle of modern times — 
the battle summer of 1864. In Wisconsin, the Thirty-seventh 
Regiment of Infantry was in process of enrollment, and the whilom 
Englishman was one of those engaged in recruiting for this regi- 
ment, putting his money as well as his time into the work. Cap- 
tain Eden was so successful in enlisting men for the service, that 
when the regiment was organized he was commissioned as major. 
In the strenuous days immediately following the battle of Cold 
Harbor the writer again met his old employer. The difference 
in rank between the enlisted man and the commissioned officer was 
no bar to the recognition of the former friendship existing between 
the steamboat captain and his pilot — friendship broadened and 
strengthened by companionship in woods and along streams by 
mutual interest and respect. 

Major Robert C. Eden, or "Bob" Eden, as he was called at 
the front, was a model officer. His family had for generations 
been furnishing officers for the British army, and the fighting 
blood ran in his veins. His regiment was in the hottest of the 
fight at the Petersburg mine disaster, and he was at the head of 
his men. Through all the long siege following the first repulse, 
from June, 1864, until April, 1865, constantly under fire, he 
proved the metal that was in his composition. When he left 
England to seek his fortune, he was engaged to a Scotch lassie 
from one of the old families of the borderland. After a summer's 
sxperience of Yankee warfare, pitted against the "Johnnies" under 
Lee, Longstreet, Gordon, and Wise — men of equal courage, 
tenacity, and fighting ability — "Bob" concluded that another 
summer of the same sort as the last might prove too much for 
bim, and that he might lose the number of his mess, as hundreds 
Df his comrades had in the summer just closed. If he hoped or 
ivished to leave a widow when he was called, he had better clinch 
the contract at once. And so he did. 

His fiancee, who also came of fighting stock, promptly re- 
sponded to the challenge and came overseas to meet her hero. 
They were married across a stump in the rear of Fort Haskell 
(Fort Hell, the boys called it, as opposed to Fort Damnation, 



204 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

immediately opposite, in the Confederate line of works). Chap- 
lain Hawes read the full Church of England service for the occa- 
sion, the regiment formed in hollow square about them, and the 
brigade band played the wedding march, while an occasional shell 
from the Confederate works sang overhead. Major-General O. 
B. Wilcox, commanding the division, gave away the bride, and 
all went merry despite the warlike surroundings. 

After the war, Major Eden returned to Oshkosh and resumed 
his editorial labors, in which he persisted for several years. Fi- 
nally the home hunger came upon him, or perhaps more strongly 
upon his wife. The wild Western society of the swiftest town of 
its size in the state was not so much to her liking as that of the 
slower but more refined surroundings of the land of her birth. 
Severing all ties, business and otherwise, they returned to England. 
Once there the influence of English kin and early associations was 
too strong to permit of his return to Yankee land, and Major 
"Bob" assumed the canonical robes which had so long awaited 
his broad shoulders. 

"And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds 
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries", 

he ministers at the altar of the Prince of Peace, the calling toward 
which his early education tended. His excursion into the wilds 
of the Northwest, his steamboat trip up the Great River, his 
experience as the editor of a frontier newspaper, and his service 
in an alien army — all must have had an influence in broadening 
his view and enriching his preaching. 

One incident which occurred in our rambles was somewhat 
amusing. We had tied up in the mouth of the Kinnickinnic 
River, and had walked up the stream some eight or ten miles to 
the little village of River Falls, where I was very well acquainted, 
and where the trout fishing was excellent. It had been Eden's 
request that I should introduce him simply as Captain Eden, with- 
out going into any particulars of parentage, education, or nation- 
ality. As he wore a suit of Scotch tweeds somewhat the worse 
for wear from numerous excursions after deer, prairie chickens, 
and trout, there was nothing suggestive of the Oxonian about him. 
In River Falls lived the only really educated man of that locality — 
a graduate from Yale, both- in law and divinity. We called upon 
him and while discussing the country, its beauty, its game, and 



A STRAY NOBLEMAN 205 

its fishing, Captain Eden was toying with a book of Greek trage- 
dies, that lay open on the table. His apparent interest in the 
strange characters in which the book was printed tempted the 
scholar to remark, possibly with a slightly ironical inflection: 

"I presume you read Greek on the river, Captain?" 

"Oh, yes", was Captain Eden's response, "I am very fond 
of the Greek tragedies, and I have read a good deal to keep in 
practice. I like this passage that you were reading when we 
came in." 

Taking the book. Captain Eden read in a beautifully modu- 
lated voice, and with probably a perfect accent, the passage which 
the scholar had marked, and which he had been reading when 
we called. I say, "probably perfect accent". I had never seen 
a printed page of Greek before, much less had I ever heard it 
read as fluently as I could read English. The amende which the 
scholar instantly made, and the praises which he bestowed on the 
marine prodigy who captained a little steamboat on the river, wore 
rough clothes, and read Greek like a native, convinced me that his 
ministerial preparation had been laid upon solid foundations, and 
that his accent was above criticism, out in that country at least. 

It was during this visit to River Falls that Captain Eden 
made the acquaintance of Ellsworth Burnett, another nobleman, 
born among the hills of Vermont, at whose farm we were guests 
while loading our baskets with trout from the south fork of the 
Kinnickinnic, which flowed through his farm and past his door. 
The friendship thus begun undoubtedly led to Eden's going into 
the army, for Burnett was largely instrumental in raising one 
of the companies of the regiment in which Major Eden was 
commissioned, himself going out as a captain, and returning at the 
close of the war as major. 



Chapter XXVI 

In War Time 

In the early spring of i86i the "Fanny Harris" was chartered 
by the United States government to go to Fort Ridgeley, up the 
Minnesota River, and bring down the battery of light artillery 
stationed at that post, known as the Sherman Battery, Major 
T. W. Sherman having been in command long enough to have 
conferred his name upon the organization, and by that it was 
known at the time of which I write. It is three hundred miles 
from St. Paul to Fort Ridgeley by the river; as a crow flies, the 
distance is about half of that. A little more than one year after 
our visit there was business at and near the fort for many crows — 
the gruesome occupation of picking the bones of a thousand white 
people (men, women, and children) murdered by the crafty Sioux, 
who saw in the withdrawal of the troops an opportunity to avenge 
all their wrongs, real or imaginary, and to regain the lands which 
had been sold under treaty, or which had been stolen from them 
by the fast encroaching white population of the state. 

The Minnesota River is the worst twisted water course in 
the West. No other affluent of the Mississippi can show as many 
bends to the mile throughout its course. It is a series of curves 
from start to finish, the river squirming its way through an alluvial 
prairie from Beaver Falls, the head of navigation, to Mendota at 
its mouth. Up this crooked stream it was the problem to force 
the largest boat that had ever navigated it, and a stern-wheeler 
at that. At the time the trip was made, there was a nineteen-foot 
rise in the river, resulting from the melting of the snow after an 
exceptionally hard winter. This precluded any danger of touching 
bottom anywhere, but it added ten fold to the difficulties of navi- 
gating a two hundred-foot steamboat around the short bends for 
the reason that the water did not follow the regular channel, but 



IN WAR TIME 207 



cut right across bends and points, so that most of the time the 
current was setting squarely across the river, catching the steamer 
broadside on, and driving her into the woods, and when there 
holding her as in a vise. Being a stern-wheeler it was impossible, 
by going ahead on one wheel and backing on the other, as would 
have been done by a side-wheeler, to keep her head clear of the 
bank. All this work had to be done by the men at the wheel, 
and they very soon found their work cut out for them, in hand- 
ling the boat by the steering wheel and rudders alone. We had 
a Minnesota River pilot on board to assist our men in steering; it 
was an impossibility to lose one's self, so that his services were 
confined almost exclusively to steering, and not to piloting, in its 
true sense. We also had an army officer from Fort Snelling on 
board, to see that all possible speed was made. His orders were 
to "push her through" at whatever cost, regardless of damage. 

The boat was coaled at St. Paul for the round trip, for the 
woodyards were all under water, and the cord wood was adrift 
on its way to St. Louis, derelict. From the time we entered the 
river at Fort Snelling, two men were at the wheel all the time. 
I was sent to the engine-room, my experience as a "cub" engineer 
rendering my services there of more importance for the time being 
than in the pilot house. I stood at one engine all day, while one 
of the firemen detailed for the purpose stood at the other, to "ship 
up", to back, or come ahead. There were no unnecessary bells 
rung. If we were going ahead and the stopping bell rang, fol- 
lowed by the backing bell we threw the rods on to their "hooks", 
and the engineer gave her full steam astern. This was usually 
followed by a crash forward, as the boat was thrown broadside, 
with almost full speed ahead, into the woods, after having struck 
one of the cross currents either unguardedly, or else one which was 
too strong in any case for the wheelsmen to meet and overcome by 
the rudder alone. If it chanced that the bank was overhung by 
trees, the forward cabin lost an additional portion of its ornamenta- 
tion. 

In nearly every such instance it was necessary to get the yawl 
overboard, and with four men at the oars and a steersman sculling 
astern, pull to the opposite side of the river and get a line fast to 
a tree. The line was then taken to the steam capstan and the 
boat would be hauled out of a position from which it would have 



2o8 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

been impossible to release her by the engines and wheel alone. 
This work was kept up from daylight until dark, and when the 
four men came down from the pilot house they were apt to be so 
exhausted that they could scarcely stand. 

The boat tied up where night overtook her. In the engine- 
room, as soon as the day's run was ended, all hands set to work — 
engineers, "strikers" and firemen — to replace the lost and broken 
wheel-arms and buckets. This was a hard and dangerous job, for 
the water ran a raging torrent, six or eight miles an hour, and the 
nights were dark and rainy. It was precarious business, this get- 
ting out on the fantails, with only the dim light of half a dozen 
lanterns, unscrewing refractory nuts and bolts with a big 
monkey-wrench, and in the meantime holding on by one's legs 
only, over such a mill tail. Everybody engaged in this work un- 
derstood fully that if he ever fell into the water it was the end of 
all things to him, for he would have been swept away in the dark- 
ness and drowned in a minute. There was no dry land for him 
to reach in any direction, the river sweeping across the country 
five or ten feet deep in every direction. It was usually far past 
midnight when the temporary and necessary repairs were completed, 
and then the engine-room force "turned in" to get three or four 
hours sleep before beginning another day as full of work and 
danger as the preceding. 

All this time the army man either stood on the roof with the 
captain, dodging falling spars, chimneys, or limbs of trees, or at the 
wheel with the pilots, or paced the engine-room, and urged speed, 
speed, speed. "The United States will put a new cabin on your 
boat. Never mind that. Keep your wheel turning and your 
machinery in working order. We must have troops in Wash- 
ington at once, or there will be no United States." It is fair to 
say that every man on the boat worked as though his life depended 
upon his exertions. Whatever may have been their political 
sympathies, there was nothing on the surface to indicate other 
than the determination to get that battery to La Crosse in the 
shortest possible time. 

That army officer was the epitome of concentrated energy. 
He was a captain and quartermaster, and representing the United 
States, was practically supreme on board. He had his limitations 
as a steamboatman, but thanks to the splendid equipment which 



IN WAR TIME 209 



his government had given him at West Point, coupled with the 
experience he had gained during many years' service in the West in 
moving troops, Indians, and supplies by steamboat, he had a pretty 
good idea of v^^hat needed to be done, and could judge very clearly 
whether the men in charge were competent, and were doing things 
in the right way and to the best advantage. 

Under ordinary circumstances such a close censorship of the 
officers and crew would not have been maintained, nor would it 
have been tolerated if suggested. But at this time everything 
was at white heat. Fort Sumter had fallen. Men were stirred 
as never before in this country, and officers of the regular army 
particularly, who knew better than any others the gravity of the 
impending conflict, were keyed up to the highest tension by the 
responsibility placed upon them. On the other hand the officers 
of our boat were likewise burdened with the responsibility of safely 
taking a big vessel hundreds of miles up a narrow and crooked 
river, just now covered with floating drift of every description, 
with undermined trees falling at every mile. They were spurred 
on by the thought that the difference of a day, or even of a few 
hours, might determine the loss of the nation's capital. Under 
these circumstances the insistence of the army man was passed by 
as a matter of course. 

Near Belle Plaine a council was called to decide whether 
an attempt should be made to force a passage through the thin 
strip of timber that fringed the river bank. If successful, this would 
permit of sailing the boat a straight course for ten miles across 
a submerged prairie, thus cutting ofif twenty miles of crooked and 
arduous navigation. The Minnesota River pilot was sure that 
we would meet with no obstacles after passing the fringe of tim- 
ber — not a house, barn, or haystack, as all that somewhat unusual 
class of obstructions to a steamboat had been carried away by the 
great flood. After discussing the plan in all its bearings, it was 
decided to try it as soon as a narrow and weak place could be 
found in the timber belt. 

Such a place, where the willows and cottonwoods were the 
thinnest and smallest in diameter, was chosen for the attempt. 
The boat, by reason of its length, could not be pointed straight 
at the "hurdle", as the pilots facetiously dubbed it, but a quartering 
cut was decided upon. The jack staff had long ago been carried 



THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 



away; the spars and derricks were housed below, and a large por- 
tion of the forward roof was already missing. It was decided, 
therefore, that a little more banging would count for nothing. 
Everybody was cautioned to stand clear of the guards, and look 
out for himself. A big head of steam was accumulated, and then 
with two men at the wheel and everybody hanging on, the "Fanny 
Harris" was pointed at the opposite shore, with its lining of woods, 
and the throttle thrown wide open. She jumped across the river 
in a minute and dove into the young timber, crushing trees six 
inches in diameter flat on either side ; the water-soaked, friable soil 
affording no secure holding ground for the roots, which added 
greatly to our chances of success. The boat plunged through all 
right, with little damage, until the wheel came in over the bank. 
Then there was music. Many of the trees were only bent out of 
perpendicular, and when the hull passed clear these trees rebounded 
to more or less perpendicular positions — enough so as to get into 
the wheel and very nearly strip it of its buckets, together with a 
dozen of the wheel-arms. The pilots heard the crash and rang 
to stop. The engineers knew more about the damage than the 
pilots, but would not have stopped the engine of their own accord 
had the whole stern of the boat gone with it. It wasn't their 
business to stop without orders, and they knew their business. 

When the wheel stopped turning, the boat stopped. The 
problem then was, to get the boat through the remaining hundred 
feet or more. This was done by carrying the big anchor ahead, 
and taking the cable to the steam capstan. The boat was dragged 
"out of the woods", and all hands turned to to replace the smashed 
buckets. As soon as they were in place we steamed gaily up the 
current, over the prairie, clean-swept of fences, stacks, and barns, 
only a few isolated houses, built on the higher knolls, having 
escaped the flood. At the upper end of the prairie a weak place 
was found, and with a clear start in the open water the boat was 
driven through the fringe of timber, clear into the open chan- 
nel, without stopping, and this time with but little injury to the 
wheel. 

Couriers had been sent ahead from Fort Snelling, by pony ex- 
press, to the commanding officer of the fort, to have his battery 
ready to embark as soon as the boat should arrive. It had taken 
us four days to run the three hundred miles, and it was a dilapidat- 



IN WAR TIME 



ed steamboat that at last made fast at the landing place at the foot 
of the bluff, under the shadow of Fort Ridgeley. 

The fort was ideally situated for defense against Indian 
attacks, for which, of course, it was alone built. It would appear, 
however, that its builders had little idea that it would ever be put 
to the test — such a test as it was subjected to a little more than 
a year after our visit. It was located on a sort of promontory 
formed by the bluff on the side next the river, and a deep ravine 
on the other. On the third side of the triangle lay the open 
prairie, stretching away for miles, with only a slight sprinkling 
of scrub oaks to obstruct the view. The barracks, stables, and 
storehouse (frame structures) were built up solidly on two sides 
of this triangle, next the ravines, the windowless backs of the 
buildings forming the walls of the fort. Toward the prairie, the 
most vulnerable face, the buildings did not fully cover the front, 
there being two or three wide openings between those that formed 
that side of the defenses. These openings were covered by cannon 
of the battery which garrisoned the fort. 

When the battery embarked for the East there were left only 
two or three small howitzers in charge of a sergeant of artillery, 
and it was these little pieces that saved the garrison from massacre 
in August, 1862, when the fort was for many days beleaguered by 
eight hundred Sioux Indians under the chief, Little Crow, leader 
of the uprising in Minnesota in that year. Undoubtedly the re- 
spect that Indians have for any sort of cannon had as much to do 
with their repulse as did the actual punishment inflicted by the 
howitzers, however well-served they may have been. I have a 
letter somewhere, written by a distant cousin who was a colonel 
in the Confederate army, relating that they had several thousand 
Indians in the Confederate army upon going into the battle of 
Prairie Grove, and from them they expected great things. When 
the "Yanks" opened with their artillery the sound alone brought 
the Indian contingent to a stand. When the gunners got the range 
and began to drop shells among them, the red men remembered 
that they had pressing business in the Indian Territory, and it is 
Colonel Merrick's opinion that they did not stop running until 
they reached their tepees. It is his opinion also that as soldiers, for 
use in war where Anglo-Saxons are debating grave questions of 
state with twelve pounders, they are not worth a red copper. 



Chapter XXVIl 

At Fort Rid gel ey 

The officer in command of the battery when it left Fort 
Ridgeley was Captain and Brevet Major John C. Pemberton, U, 
S. A. He had won his brevet by gallant services in action at 
Monterey and Molino del Rcy. He accompanied the battery as 
far as Washington, where he resigned (April 29, 1861), and 
tendered his sword to the Confederacy. He was rapidly promoted 
until he reached a major-generalcy in that army, and had the dis- 
tinguished honor to surrender his army of thirty thousand men at 
Vicksburg to Major General Ulysses S. Grant, July 3, 1863. 
Pemberton was born in Pennsylvania, being appointed to the army 
from that state, so that he had not even the flimsy excuse of serving 
his state in thus betraying his country. 

The battery was known as the Buena Vista Battery, or still 
better as Sherman's. But Major Sherman, although long its com- 
mander, was not with it at the time we transferred it down the 
river. Major Sherman rendered distinguished service during the 
war, and retired (December 31, 1870) with the rank of major- 
general. Two other officers were with the battery — First Lieu- 
tenant Romeyn Ayres, and Second Lieutenant Beekman Du Barry. 
The battery was known in the Army of the Potomac as Ayres's 
Battery, and under that name won a wide reputation for efficiency. 
Ayres himself was a major general of volunteers before the close of 
the war, and Lieutenant Du Barry was (May, 1865) brevetted 
lieutenant-colonel for distinguished services. 

At the time of our visit there was a large number of Indians 
encamped on the prairie in front of the fort — estimated at seven 
or eight hundred by those best versed in their manners and customs. 
They had come down from the Lower Sioux Agency, sixteen miles 
farther up the river. They were alive to the situation, and on the 



AT FORT RIDGELY 213 

alert to learn all they could of the "white man's war", which they 
had already heard of as being fought in some far-away place, the 
location of which was not clear to them, and for which they cared 
nothing so long as it promised to be a contest that was likely to 
draw away soldiers from the fort, and especially the "big guns", 
which they feared more than they did the "dough boys". One of 
the best posted of the frontiersmen, a "squaw man", who had the 
ear of the tribal council, told our officers that there would be 
trouble when the battery was withdrawn, for they felt themselves 
able successfully to fight and exterminate the few companies of 
infantry left to garrison the fort. How true this prediction was, 
the uprising of August, 1862, and the Indian war in Minnesota, 
with its massacre at New Ulm and outlying regions, abundantly 
verified. 

As soon as we were made fast, the work was begun of loading 
cannon, caissons, battery wagons, ammunition, and stores, as well 
as horses and men. By the light of torches, lanterns, and huge bon- 
fires built on the bank, the work was rushed all night long, while 
the engineers labored to put the engines and particularly the wheel, 
in the best possible condition ; and the carpenter, aided by artisans 
from the fort, put on new guards forward, and strengthened the 
weak places for the inevitable pounding that we knew must attend 
the down-stream trip. With the raging river pressing on the 
stern of the boat as she descended, there was ample reason for 
anticipating much trouble in handling the steamer. 

The teamsters, with their six-mule teams, hurried the stores 
and ammunition down the narrow roadway cut in the side of the 
bluff, running perhaps half a mile along the side in making the 
perpendicular descent of two hundred feet. Whatever time we 
had from our duties on the boat was spent either in the fort, out in 
the Indian village, or on the side hill watching the teams come 
down the bluff, one after the other. Not being able to pass on 
the hill, they went down together, and all went back empty at the 
same time. The two hind wheels of the big army wagon were 
chained, so that they slid along the ground, instead of revolving. 
Then the three riders, one on each "near" mule, started the outfit 
down the hill, the off mules being next the bluff, while the legs 
of the drivers hung out over space on the other side. In places the 
wagons would go so fast, in spite of the drag, that the mules 



214 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

would have to trot to keep out of the way. This was exciting 
and interesting to the spectators, who were expecting to see a 
team go over the precipice. The drivers did not seem to care 
anything about the matter, and were no doubt well pleased to 
become the centre of attraction. 

Those of the spectators who had time and patience to con- 
tinue the watch were finally rewarded for their persistence, and 
justified in their predictions by seeing one of these teams, with 
its load of fixed ammunition, roll for a hundred feet down the 
hlufi — men, mules, and ammunition in one wild mix-up, rolling 
and racing for the bottom. The fringe of timber alone saved 
the cortege from plunging into the river. Those who saw the 
trip made, were betting that neither a man nor a mule would 
come out alive. They all came out alive. Some of the mules 
were badly scratched and banged, but not a leg was broken among 
the six. The men were also badly bruised, but they also brought 
all their bones out whole. One mule had his neck wound around 
the wagon-tongue, his own tongue hanging out about the length 
of that of the wagon, and all hands were certain of one dead 
mule, at least. But when the troopers ran in and cut away the 
harness the mule jumped to his feet, took in a few long breaths 
to make good for the five minutes' strangulation, and then started 
up the roadway, dodging the down-coming teams by a hair's- 
breadth, and never stopping until he reached his corral, where he 
began munching hay as though nothing out of the ordinary had 
happened. 

The next morning everything was stowed aboard. With a 
salute from the little howitzers in the fort, and the cheers of the 
"dough boys", who wanted to go but could not, the 'Tanny 
Harris" backed into the stream, "straightened up", and began her 
down-stream trip. I shall not attempt to follow her down, in 
all her situations. With the heavy load, and the stream behind 
her, it was possible to check her speed in a measure at the bends, 
but totally impossible to stop her and back her up against the 
current. The result was, that she "flanked" around points that 
raked her whole length, and then plunged into timber, bows on, 
on the opposite side of the river, ripping the ginger-bread work, 
and even the guards, so that it would seem as though the boat 
were going to destruction. Some of the artillerymen were sure 



AT FORT RIDGELY 215 

of it, and all of them would sooner have risked a battle than 
the chance of drowning that at times seemed so imminent. We 
made good time, however, and ran the three hundred miles in two 
running days of daylight, laying up nights, and repairing damages 
as far as possible against the next day's run. 

When we rounded to at Fort Snelling landing we had one 
chimney about ten feet high above deck; the other was three feet 
— just one joint left above the breeching. Both escape pipes 
and the jack staff were gone — we lost the latter the first day, 
going up. The stanchions on both sides of the boiler deck were 
swept clean away, together with liberal portions of the roof itself. 
The boat looked like a wreck, but her hull was sound. The 
officers and crew were game to the last. Many of them had been 
hurt more or less, and all had been working until they were scarce- 
ly able to move. It was war time, however. Fort Sumter had 
fallen, and the president had called for seventy-five thousand men. 
We were doing our part with a will, in hastening forward a 
battery that was to give a good account of itself from Bull Run 
to Appomattox. 

At Fort Snelling we lost two of our firemen and a number 
of our deck crew, who deserted while we were lying at that place, 
taking on additional stores and men. We thought it a cowardly 
thing to do, under the circumstances. A few weeks later, how- 
ever, we saw the two firemen going to the front with a volunteer 
company from Prescott, afterwards Company "B", 6th Wisconsin 
Infantry, in which "Whiskey Jim", the Irishman, and Louis 
Ludloff, the "Dutchman", distinguished themselves for valor in 
battle. Richardson gave his life for his country at the Wilderness, 
while Ludloff fought all the way through, rising from private 
to corporal, sergeant, and first sergeant, and being wounded at 
Antietam and the Wilderness. 

In talking with Ludloff in later years, I learned that the 
reason they deserted the steamer, leaving behind their accrued 
wages and even their clothes, was because they feared that they 
would not be able to get in among the seventy-five thousand if 
they lost any time in formalities and details. There were others, 
higher up in the world than the humble firemen, who also mis- 
calculated the length of the impending war — by four years. 
Distinguished editors and statesmen, and even soldiers, made this 



2i6 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

error. And there were a good many who failed to "get in" even 
then. 

We ran to La Crosse with our pieces of chimneys, which the 
artisans at the Fort had helped our engineers to piece together so 
that the smoke would clear the pilot house. It did not give the 
best of draught; but we were going downstream on a flood, and 
we might have drifted five miles an hour without any steam at all. 
We delivered the battery at La Crosse, and immediately went into 
dry dock, where a hundred men made short work of the repairs. 
The United States paid our owners, the Minnesota Packet Com- 
pany, eight thousand dollars for the week's work. The officers 
and crew who earned the money for the company were not in- 
vited to assist in its division. It was the hardest week's work 
that most of us had ever known — certainly the hardest I had 
ever experienced up to that time. A year or so later I got into 
work fully as hard, and it lacked the pleasant accessories of good 
food and a soft bed, that accompanied the strenuous days and 
nights spent on the Fort Ridgeley excursion. 

An incident remotely connected with this trip, offers an 
excellent opportunity to philosophize on the smallness of the planet 
we inhabit, and the impossibility of escaping from, or avoiding 
people whom we may once have met. At a meeting of Congre- 
gationalists held in a city far removed from the fort that stood 
guard on the bluffs overhanging the Minnesota River in i86i, 
the writer was introduced to Mr. Henry Standing Bear, secretary 
of the Young Men's Christian Association of Pine Ridge, South 
Dakota. Standing Bear is a graduate of Carlisle College, an 
educated and intelligent and a full-blood Sioux Indian. In con- 
versation with him it transpired that he was one of the children 
who stared open-eyed at the steamboat lying at the landing place 
below the fort in 1861, and that he was an interested spectator of 
the embarkation of Sherman's Battery. He there listened to the 
talk of the braves who were already planning what they would 
do when the soldiers should all be withdrawn to fight the "white 
man's war" in the South. Standing Bear's own father took part 
in the "massacre", as we called it. Standing Bear says they them- 
selves called it a war. Indians may go about their killings with 
somewhat more of ferocity and cruelty than do we whites, but 
it is their way of making war. In either case it is "hell", as "Old 



AT FORT RIDGELY 219 

Tecump" said, and the distinctions that we draw after all make 
little difference in the results. We do not have to seek very far 
through the pages of history to find instances where white men 
have massacred helpless Indian women and children. 

A talk with Henry Standing Bear, or any other educated 
Indian born amid surroundings such as his, will throw new light 
and new coloring upon the Indian situation as it existed in 1861. 
They saw the whites steadily encroaching upon their hunting 
grounds, appropriating the best to their own use, ravishing their 
women, killing their men, and poisoning whole tribes with their 
"fire-water". Against their wills they were driven from their 
ancient homes — "removed", was the word — after having been 
tricked into signing treaties that they did not understand, couched 
in legal terms that they could not comprehend, receiving in ex- 
change for their lands a lot of worthless bric-a-brac that vanished 
in a week. ^ If they protested or resisted, they were shot down 
like so many wolves, and with as little mercy. What man is there 
among the whites who would not fight under such circumstances? 
Our forefathers fought under less provocation and their cause has 
been adjudged a righteous cause. 

This is the Indian's view-point as stated by a civilized tribes- 
man. His fathers fought, and are dead. He was adopted by the 
nation, educated, and started upon a higher plane of living, as he 
is free to confess; but it is doubtful if he can be started upon a 

8 This is a pretty wild statement on the part of Standing Bear, 
probably made through ignorance of the facts in the case rather than a 
•wilful misrepresentation. In the treaty made with the Sioux Indians at 
Traverse des Sioux, July 2-3, 1851, the United States covenanted to pay 
$1,665,000 for such rights and title as were claimed by the Sisseton and 
Wahpeton tribes or bands in lands lying in Iowa and Minnesota. In 
another treaty, made with the M'day-wa-kon-ton and Wak-pay-koo-tay 
bands, also of the Sioux nation, the United States agreed to pay the 
further sum of $1,410,000 for the rights of these two bands in lands 
lying in Iowa and Minnesota. In addition the Sioux had already been 
paid a large sum for their rights in lands lying on the cast side of the 
Mississippi, in Wisconsin — lands in which they really had no right of 
title at all, as they had gained whatever rights they claimed simply by 
driving back the Chippewa from the country which they had occupied 
for generations. The Sioux themselves did not, and could not, avail 
themselves of the rights so gained, and the territory was a debatable land 
for years — a fighting ground for the rival nations of the Sioux and 
Chippewa. 



220 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

higher plane of thinking than that upon which his blanketed for- 
bears lived, in spite of the cruelties to which they were born and 
educated. While I am no sentimentalist on the Indian question, 
when I fall into the hands of a Standing Bear I am almost per- 
suaded that the Indian, within his lights, is as much of a patriot 
as many of his bleached brethren. As to his manhood there is no 
question. In the long struggle that has taken place between him- 
self and the white invaders, he has always backed his convictions 
with his life, if need be; and such men, if white, we call "pa- 
triots." 



Chapter XXVIII 

Improving the River 

It was not until commerce on the upper river was practically 
a thing of the past, that any effort was made to improve the 
channel for purposes of navigation. A number of interests united 
to bring about this good work when it did come — some merito- 
rious, others purely selfish. The steamboatmen, what was left of 
them, entertained the fallacious idea that if the river were straight- 
ened, deepened, lighted, and freed from snags and other hin- 
drances to navigation, there would still be some profit in running 
their boats, despite the railroad competition that had so nearly 
ruined their business. This was a mistaken supposition, and they 
were disabused of the idea only by experience. 

The mill owners of the upper river and its tributaries, who 
had by this time begun to "tow through" — that is, push their 
rafts of logs and lumber with a steamboat from Stillwater to St. 
Louis, instead of drifting — were assured of quicker trips and 
greater safety if the river was dressed up somewhat, insuring 
greater profits upon their investments. Both of these parties in 
interest were engaged in legitimate trade, and while there was no 
intention of dividing the profits th^t might inure to them from 
an investment of several millions of dollars of other people's 
money, precedent had legitimatized the expenditure in other lo- 
calities and upon other rivers. They were well within the bounds 
of reason, in asking that their own particular business might be 
made more profitable through the aid of government. 

A greater influence than any arguments drawn from com- 
mercial necessities was found in the political interest involved. 
For years, members of congress elected from districts in which 
there was a harbor or a river which by any fiction might be 
legislated into a "navigable stream", had been drawing from the 



THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 



federal treasury great sums of money for the improvement of 
these streams and harbors; yet some of these never floated any- 
thing larger than the government yawls in which the engineers 
who did the work reached the scene of their duties. At the same 
time, country members from the interior of the great West drew 
nothing. The rapid settlement of the Northwestern territories, 
in the year immediately following the close of the Civil War, had 
an effect that was felt in the enhanced influence exerted by mem- 
bers of congress representing the new commonwealths. It fol- 
lowed that when the biennial distribution of "pork", as it is 
expressively but inelegantly called nowadays, came up, these mem- 
bers were in a position to demand their share, and get it, or defeat 
the distribution in toto. 

The war was over. The Union soldiers who had fought in 
it were either dead, or if alive were hustling for a living. Hun- 
dreds of thousands of them were found in Iowa, Minnesota, 
Kansas, and Nebraska, opening up farms and developing the 
country. The contractors who had fattened on their blood were 
hanging like leeches to every department of the national govern- 
ment, clamoring for more contracts to further inflate their already 
plethoric bank accounts. The river improvement appealed strong- 
ly to this class of men. The influences that they could bring to 
bear, backed by the legitimate demands of steamboatmen and mill 
owners, convinced the most conscientious congressmen that their 
duty lay in getting as large an appropriation as possible for the 
work of river regeneration. The result was, that the river which 
had given employment to three or four hundred steamboats, 
manned by fifteen thousand men, without having a dollar ex- 
pended in ameliorating its conditions, suddenly became the centre 
of the greatest concern to congress — and to the contractors — 
and all for the benefit of a dozen steamboats in regular traffic, 
and perhaps a hundred boats used in towing the output of a score 
of mills owned by millionaire operators. 

From 1866 to 1876 there was spent on the river betw^een the 
mouth of the Missouri and St. Paul, a distance of 700 miles, the 
sum of $5,200,707. That was for the ten years at the rate of 
$7,429 for each mile of the river improved. It cost at that rate 
$742.90 per mile per year during the decade quoted. It is doubt- 
ful if the few steamboats engaged In traffic during that time were 



IMPROVING THE RIVER 223 

able to show aggregate gross earnings of $742.90 per mile per 
annum. It seems a pity that the benefit resulting from this 
expenditure could not have been participated in by the great 
flotilla that covered the river in the preceding decade, from 1856 
to 1866. 

In this expenditure we find $59,098 charged to the eleven 
miles of river between St. Paul and St. Anthony Falls. It is 
doubtful if a dozen trips a year were made to St. Anthony Falls 
during the time noted. It was a hard trip to make against the 
rapid current below the falls, and a dangerous trip to make down- 
stream. It would seem, however, that with the expenditure of 
$5,909 per year for ten years, over only eleven miles of river, 
every rock (and it is all rocks) might have been pulled ashore, 
and a perfect canal built up. Possibly that is the result of all 
this work; I haven't been over that piece of river since the work 
was completed — for one reason, among others, that no steam- 
boats ever go to St. Anthony Falls, now that the river is put 
in order. 

From St. Paul to Prescott, thirty-two miles, there was ex- 
pended $638,498 in ten years. I can readily understand why so 
much money was planted in that stretch of river. Beginning at 
Prescott and going toward St. Paul, there were to be found five 
or six of the worst bars there are anywhere on the river; and 
between the accentuated bars — bars of sufficient importance to 
merit names of their own — the rest of the river was bad enough 
to merit at least some of the language expended upon it by pilots 
who navigated it before the improvements came. At Prescott, 
at the head of Puitt's Island (now Prescott Island) or Point 
Douglass bar, at Nininger, at Boulanger's Island, at Grey Cloud, 
at Pig's Eye, and at Frenchman's, were bars that were the terror 
of all pilots and the dread of all owners and stockholders. I will 
eliminate the "terror" as expressing the feelings of the pilots. 
"Resignation" would perhaps be the better word. They all knew 
pretty well where to go to find the best water on any or all of 
the bars named; but they also knew that when they found the 
best water it would be too thin to float any boat drawing over 
three and a half feet. With a four-foot load line it simply meant 
that the steamboat must be hauled through six inches of sand by 
main strength and awkwardness, and that meant delay, big wood 



224 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

bills, bigger wage-lists, wear and tear of material, and decreased 
earnings. A big packet not loaded below the four-foot line, was 
not laden to the monej'-making point. After the work of regen- 
eration began, it was a constant fight on the part of the engineers 
to maintain a four and a half foot channel on either one of the 
bars named. The expenditure of the great sums of money placed 
in this district is therefore easily accounted for. 

The work of improvement was, and still is carried on under 
the direction of competent engineers, detailed for the service by 
the chief of engineers of the United States army. No more 
highly trained men in their profession can be found in the world 
than these choice graduates of the most perfect institution of 
instruction in the world — West Point Military Academy. Their 
scientific, perhaps academic, knowledge of the laws governing 
the flow of water and the shifting of sands, the erosion of banks 
and the silting up into islands and continents, which are among 
the vagaries of the great river, is supplemented by the practical, 
if unscientific, knowledge of men who have gained their acquaint- 
ance with the river from years of service as pilots or masters of 
river steamboats. The government is shrewd enough to secure 
the services of such men to complement the science of its chosen 
representatives. These tw-o classes, in pairs or by companies, 
have made an exhaustive study of conditions surrounding each 
of the more difficult and troublesome bars, as well as all others 
of lesser note, in order to decide what was needed, what kind of 
work, and how to be placed to lead, or drive the water into the 
most favorable channels, and there retain it under varying condi- 
tions of flood or drought, ice jams, or any and all the conditions 
contributing to the changes forever going on in the river. 

These points determined, an estimate is made of the cost 
of the necessary improvements, details of construction are drawn, 
specifications submitted, and bids on the proposed work invited. 
There were, and are, plenty of contractors, provided with boats, 
tackle, stone quarries, and all else required in the prosecution of 
the work. It would not be safe, however, to assume that the 
government always reaped the benefit of so much competition as 
might be assumed from the number of men engaged in the busi- 
ness. It would be unsafe to assume that such competition has 
always been free from collusion, although possibly it has been. 



IMPROVING THE RIVER 225 

On the other hand, each contractor has his "beat", from which 
all other bidders have religiously kept off. Not in an ostentatious 
manner, however, for that might invite suspicion; but in a busi- 
ness-like and gentlemanly manner, by putting in a bid just a few 
cents per cubic foot higher than the man upon whose territory 
the work was to be done, and whose figures have been secretly 
consulted before the bids were submitted. There have been sus- 
picions that such has been the case, more than once, and that the 
work sometimes cost the government more than a fair estimate 
had provided for. The contracts have been let, however, and 
within the thirty years last past there have been built along the 
river between Prescott and St. Paul two hundred and fifty-one 
dikes, dams, revetments, and other works for controlling the flow 
of water within that short stretch of thirty-two miles. 

Some of these dams are long, strong, and expensive; others 
are embryonic, a mere suggestion of a dam or dyke, a few feet in 
length, for the protection of a particular small portion of the bank, 
or for the diverting of the current. All these works, great and 
small, are intended as suggestions to the mighty river that in 
future it must behave itself in a seemly manner. Generally the 
river does take the hint, and behaves well in these particular 
cases. At other times it asserts itself after the old fashion, and 
wipes out a ten thousand dollar curb in a night, and chooses for 
itself a new and different channel, just as it did in the days of its 
savagery, fifty years earlier. 

A peculiar feature attending this work for the betterment of 
the river was, that in its incipient stages it met with little or no 
encouragement from any of the men personally engaged in navigat- 
ing steamboats on the river. Some deemed the proposition vision- 
ary and impracticable, while others, fearing its success, and mag- 
nifying the results to be obtained, threw every obstacle possible 
in the way of the engineers who had the work in charge. They 
even went so far as to petition Congress to abandon the work, 
and recall the engineers who had been detailed to prosecute it. 
This opposition was particularly true of work on the lower rapids, 
where the great ship canal now offers a ready and safe passage 
around rapids always difficult to navigate. Sometimes, when the 
water had reached an unusually low stage, they were positively 
impracticable for large boats. Captain Charles J. Allen, Corps of 



226 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

Engineers, U. S. A., who was in charge of the preliminary work 
on the lower rapids, calls attention, in his report, to this hostility, 
and incidentally records his opinion of river pilots in general, and 
rapids pilots in particular, in the following far from flattering 
terms : 

"Most of the river pilots are possessed of but little knowledge beyond 
that required in turning the wheel ; and their obstinacy in refusing to 
recognize and take advantage of good channels cut for them has been the 
experience of more than one engineer engaged in improving rivers. The 
rapids pilots in particular, who may lose employment, seemed to be the 
most hostile." 

The last-named class were certainly sound in their conclu- 
sions that the deepening, straightening and lighting of the rapids 
would take away their business. There is, therefore, little wonder 
that they were not enthusiastic in their support of the proposed 
improvements, which were, if successful, to deprive them of the 
means of livelihood. Perhaps the gentlemen of the engineer 
corps would not be enthusiastic over a proposition to disband the 
United States army, and muster out all its officers. The results 
justified the fears of the rapids pilots. Any pilot could take his 
boat over, after the improvements were completed, and rapids 
piloting, as a distinctive business, was very nearly wiped out. 

The slur of the West Pointer loses its point, however, with 
any one who has known many Mississippi River pilots. They 
knew a great many things besides "turning the wheel." Even 
had they known only that, they carried around under their hats 
special knowledge not to be sneezed at, even by a West Pointer. 
Later, all the men on the river came to recognize the benefits 
accruing from the work of the Mississippi River Commission, and 
none more heartily testified to the success of the work than the 
pilots and masters of the river craft. There were, indeed, none 
so well qualified to judge of results as they. 

The work once begun was prosecuted with vigor. The voice 
of the great Northwest was potent in Washington, and in the ten 
years from 1866 to 1876 more than five millions of dollars were 
expended between Minneapolis and the mouth of the Missouri. ^ 

The first thought of the government engineers to whom was 
entrusted the duty of improving the river, was naturally in the 
direction of securing and maintaining a greater depth of water. 

9 See Appendix D. 



IMPROVING THE RIVER 227 

This was to be accomplished by so curbing and controlling the 
flow that it would follow the channel decided upon, at all times 
and under all conditions. The dikes and wing dams, which were 
built by the hundred, served this purpose in a degree, and the 
flow of water was controlled to a fairly satisfactory extent. 

Then the menaces to navigation were considered, and meas- 
ures taken for their elimination. Of the two hundred and ninety- 
five recorded steamboat wrecks on the Missouri River between 
1842 and 1895, a hundred and ninety-three, or about two-thirds 
of all, were by snagging. I presume this proportion would be 
maintained on the upper Mississippi, if a similar compilation were 
at hand to decide the point. The problem was to get rid of this 
greatest of all dangers to steamboats. There was but one way, 
and that was to pull them out and carry them away, or cut them 
up and so dispose of them that the same snag would not have to 
be pulled out at each recurring rise of water, from other parts of 
the river. 

Having no steamboats fitted for the business in that early 
day (1866), the contract system was resorted to. This was found 
to be costly and unsatisfactory. Contractors agreed to remove 
snags at so much per snag, within certain lengths and estimated 
weights, they furnishing the steamboats and machinery necessary 
for the work. In order to make the business pay, they had to 
find snags, somewhere. When they were not to be found in or 
near the channel, they were obtained in any place — chutes, 
bayous, and sloughs where no steamboat ever ran, or ever would 
run. After a trip or two up and down the river, there were not 
enough snags left to make the pulling profitable, and of course 
the work was given over. But the first rise brought down a new 
supply of snags to lodge in the channel of the falling river, and 
pilots set to dodging them, just as they had done before the pulling 
began. To be of the highest efficiency, the work must be con- 
tinuous. This was deemed impossible under the contract system, 
and the engineers in charge recommended the purchase of two 
suitable steamboats for the upper river, to be fitted with improved 
machinery for lifting and disposing of the snags fished out of the 
river. These boats were to be manned and officered by the gov- 
ernment, and placed in charge of an engineer detailed by the War 
Department. They were continuously to patrol the river during 



228 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

the season of navigation, removing every snag as soon as located, 
assisting steamboats in distress, cutting overhanging trees, placing 
guide-boards and crossing h"ghts where needed, maintaining the 
same after being established, and giving their u^hole time and 
attention to the work of river improvement. This suggestion was 
carried into effect, and two steamboats purchased and fitted for the 
work. 

In 1866 Colonel Dodge, of the Corps of Engineers, who had 
had large experience in the work of river improvement, realizing 
the necessity for dredging the shoalest places, in addition to direct- 
ing the water by dikes and dams, invented a dredge to be attached 
to a steamboat, and operated by steam machinery, for the purpose 
of plowing out and scraping away the sand as it accumulated on 
the worst bars and reefs. Two or three experimental machines 
were built by a St. Paul mechanic upon the order of the United 
States oflficials, and under their supervision. These were attached 
to derricks, placed on the bows of the steamboats secured for the 
work, suspended by stout chains, and operated by steam. The 
boat, headed up river, was run to the head of the reef; the dredge 
was then lowered, and the boat backed downstream in the line 
of the channel. The dredge, twenty feet wide, stirred up the 
sand, and the scraper attachment drew it down to the foot of the 
reef, where the dredge was hoisted up and the current carried 
away the released sand into deep water. The boat was again 
run to the head of the reef and the operation repeated, each 
"scrape" being about the width of the dredge, the pilot so placing 
his boat each time as exactly to match the last preceding draft, 
without going over the same ground a second time. 

The machine was found to work to perfection, and to be of 
even greater practical utility in keeping open a navigable channel 
than the dikes and wing dams, as there is a constant filling in of 
sand at the foot of every channel artificially formed by contracting 
the flow of water. The dredge hauls this sand away as it accu- 
mulates, and by deepening the water in the channel does much 
toward attracting the steady flow of water to the particular lines 
so dredged. 



Chapter XXIX 

Killing Steamboats 

The upper Mississippi has always been, comparatively, a re- 
markably healthy stream for steamboats. A great proportion of 
the craft ending their days there, have died of old age, and have 
been decorously consigned to the scrap pile instead of meeting the 
tragic end usually assigned them by writers. In many cases where 
it is supposed or known that a steamboat of a certain name met 
destruction by fire or snag, the historian who attempts to verify 
such statement will have great difficulty in deciding just which 
boat bearing the name was the victim of that particular casualty. 
The fact is, that the same name was conferred, time after time, 
on boats built to take the place of those sunk, burned, or otherwise 
put out of commission. As early as 1840 there was the 'Tike No. 
8" on the lower river, indicating that there had been a procession 
of 'Tikes." There was also, at the same time, the "Ben Franklin 
No. 7." Boats thus named were called simply "Pike" or "Ben 
Franklin", the number not appearing on the wheelhouses, save 
in rare cases. All the other "Pikes" having gone to the bottom, 
there was but one "Pike" afloat. When reference was ordinarily 
made to the boat by that name, the auditors knew at once that 
the speaker referred to the boat then in commission. But should 
you mention that "When the "Pike" or the "Ben Franklin" was 
snagged, or burned, or blew up", in order fully to be understood 
you must designate the particular "Pike", and add such other 
details, as would leave no room for doubt which boat by that name 
you referred to, thus: "Pike No. 6 snagged at such a tow- 
head, or on such a bend; or burned in the year 1839 at Hannibal." 
Steamboat owners and captains seem to have had no super- 
stitious objections to thus naming or commanding a successor to 
the unfortunate one gone before. Before the first was comfortably 



230 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

settled in the mud of the Mississippi, an order had gone on to 
the shipyard, and in less than a week the keel was on the stocks 
for its successor. If the first was a "Galena", or a "War Eagle", 
the second also was a "Galena" or a "War Eagle". This was 
before the fashion came into vogue of naming boats after persons, 
instead of impersonal objects. There were not names enough to 
go around, and thus it came about that the "Warriors", "Post 
Boys", "Telegraphs", and "War Eagles" were worked overtime, 
to the great confusion of any one attempting to localize a disaster 
that had happened to one of that name in times past. It was 
possible to read to-day of the total loss of the "War Eagle", 
for instance; yet a month or more hence you might hear of the 
arrival of the "War Eagle" at St. Paul with a full cargo and 
passenger list. The boats might go to the bottom, but the names 
went on forever. "Post Boy" was another favorite name handed 
down from boat to boat, until seven or eight "Post Boys" had 
been launched, run their appointed courses, and met their fate, all 
within the span of less than forty years — an average of about 
five years to the boat — which was a good average for old-time 
steamers. On the upper river there were, among others, three 
"Burlingtons", two "Chippewas", two "Danubes", two "Den- 
marks", two "Dr. Franklins", three "Dubuques", two "Galenas", 
three "St. Pauls", three "War Eagles", and many others, doublets 
and triplets. All of which tends much to confuse one who is 
attempting to run down and locate the history and final disposition 
of boats bearing those names. 

So far as I can learn, there is no reliable record of all the 
losses on the upper river, giving the name of the boat, where, 
when, and how lost. It is possible that the final disposition of 
boats lost above St. Louis, is as fully covered in the list appended 
to the end of this book, as anywhere else extant. Such a record 
has been made for the Missouri River by Captain M. H, Chitten- 
den, of the United States Engineers — a very complete and his- 
torically valuable statement of the losses on that stream. Other 
records are too comprehensive, attempting to give all the losses 
through the entire length of the river, from New Orleans to St. 
Paul. While covering so much more, territorially, they lack 
in the detail that makes the compilation of real worth. 

Most writers attach particular stress to boiler explosions. 



KILLING STEAMBOATS 231 

probably from the fact that they are more spectacular, and the 
consequent loss of life usually greater. When a boat is snagged, it 
is generally possible to run her ashore in time to save the passengers 
and crew, although the vessel itself may prove a total loss. When 
a boiler explodes, the boat becomes immediately helpless, so that 
it cannot be run ashore, which occasions the considerable loss of 
life. In cases of explosion, also, the boat almost invariably burns 
in the middle of the river, and there is little chance for escape; 
for it is next to impossible to reach the life-boats carried on the 
roof, and if reached it is seldom found possible to launch them. 

Before considering the reported losses on all the Western 
waters it will be interesting to locate, as far as possible, the 
casualties on the Mississippi between St. Louis and St. Paul, the 
division or section of the river usually denominated as "upper". 
In my list of upper-river boats, ^'^ there are noted all losses of 
which I have found any record. The list comprises about three 
hundred and sixty steamers that have made one or more trips 
above Rock Island. The boats plying above St. Louis, but not 
going above the upper rapids, have not been included in this list, 
thus excluding all the Alton Line vessels, and the Illinois River 
craft. Of the three hundred and sixty boats so listed, there are 
to be found records of seventy-three losses between St. Louis and 
St. Paul, including the port of St. Louis, which has been a 
veritable graveyard for steamboats. About a dozen other boats 
were lost after going into the Missouri River trade, but these are 
not included in the number stated. The record extends over the 
period between 1823 and 1863, inclusive. An analysis of the 
causes of such losses shows that thirty-two boats were snagged 
and sunk (total losses only are included; those raised, are not 
counted as losses); sixteen were burned; ten were sunk by ice; 
five were stove in by hitting rocks, and sank; three sank by striking 
bridges; three were sunk by Confederate batteries during the war; 
two were lost from boiler explosions; one was torn to pieces by 
a tornado, and one struck a wreck of another boat and sank 
on top of the first wreck. 

What became of the other boats included in the list, I am 
unable to learn. The United States government appears never 
to have printed a report (or reports) showing the fate of the 



10 See Appendix: "Upper Mississippi River Steamboats, 1823-1863.' 



232 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

hundreds of steamboats over which it maintained an official watch- 
care while they were in active service. It would seem to have 
paid more attention to boiler explosions than to any other cause 
of disaster; for the reason, possibly, that it is supposed to have 
held itself, through its inspectors, more or less responsible for 
the condition of steam boilers. Still, as it also, through another 
set of inspectors, looks after the hulls of all steamboats, there 
would seem to be no reason why the loss of boats by snagging, 
or other similar causes affecting the hulls, should not also have 
been reported. 

It will be observed that nearly one-half the known losses 
on the upper river between 1823 and 1863 were the result of 
snagging. Captain Chittenden, in his report on steamboat losses 
on the Missouri from 1842 to 1897, gives the snags credit for 
catching 193 boats out of a total loss of 295, or two-thirds of all 
known losses. Owing to its alluvial banks, and the consequent 
eating away of wooded points and islands by the ever changing 
current of that most erratic of rivers, the bed of the stream was 
literally sown with snags. The wonder of it is, that a pilot was 
able ever to take a boat up and back a thousand miles, without 
hitting a snag and losing his boat. They did it, however, although 
the record of losses from that cause serves to show how imminent 
the danger was at all times, and how many came to grief, how- 
ever sharp the eyes of the pilot, or however skilled in reading 
the surface of the water and locating the danger. 

The upper Mississippi has more miles of rock bluffs — in 
fact, is lined with such bluffs from Keokuk to St. Paul; thus 
the wear and tear of its banks is not so great as on the Missouri. 
Still, the great number of islands, heavily wooded, furnish many 
sunken trees, and one-half of the steamboat loss on this river 
is also directly traceable to snags. 

Next to the snags, which are forever reaching out their 
gnarled arms to impale the unfortunate, fire is the greatest enemy 
of steamboat property on Western waters. Built of the lightest 
and most combustible pine, soaked with oil paint, the upper works 
are like tinder when once alight, and danger of this is ever present 
in a hundred different forms. A little explosion in the furnaces, 
throwing live coals over the deck; over-heated smokestacks, com- 
municating a blaze to the roof; careless passengers or crew, throw- 



KILLING STEAMBOATS 233 

ing half-burned matches on deck or into inflammable merchandise 
in the freight; or the mass of sparks, cinders, and live coals 
continuously falling from the stacks, especially when burning 
wood in the furnaces: all these are a constant menace, and with 
a blaze once started the chances are a hundred to one that the 
boat is lost. A lighted match thrown into a haymow can 
scarcely bring quicker results than a little blaze in the upper 
works of a steamboat. It flashes up in an instant, and the draft 
generated by the progress of the boat instantly carries it the length 
of the cabin. In fifteen minutes the upper works are gone. 
Sixteen Mississippi boats out of seventy were burned; twenty-five 
of 295, on the Missouri. As in losses from ice, so also by fire, 
St. Louis has been the storm centre, and for the same reason 
namely, the great number of boats there, both summer and 
winter. Several visitations from this most dreaded and dreadful 
enemy of steamboats are recorded in the history of river navigation, 
in which two or more boats were lost while at the St. Louis 
landing. But the one which is known far and wide on Western 
waters was of such magnitude, and the property loss so great, 
as to earn for it the title of the "Great Fire". 

This, the most disastrous of all calamities which ever occurred 
in the history of navigation in the West, commenced at about 
10 o'clock in the evening of May 17, 1849, and continued until 
7 o'clock the next morning. Captain Chittenden, the historian 
of the Missouri River, says, in describing this catastrophe: 

"Fire alarms had been heard several times early in the evening, but 
nothing had come of them, until about the hour above-mentioned, when it 
was found that fire had broken out in earnest on the steamer "White 
Cloud", which lay at the wharf between Wash and Cherry Streets. The 
"Endors" lay just above her and the "Edward Bates" below. Both caught 
fire. At this time a well-intended but ill-considered, effort to stop the 
progress of the fire was made by some parties, who cut the "Edward 
Bates's" moorings and turned her into the stream. The boat was soon 
caught by the current and carried down the river; but a strong northeast 
wind bore it constantly in shore, and every time it touched it ignited 
another boat. An effort was now made to turn other boats loose before 
the "Edward Bates" could reach them, but a fatality seemed to attend 
every effort. The burning boat outsped them all, and by frequent con- 
tacts set fire to many more. These in turn ignited the rest, until in a 
short time the river presented the spectacle of a vast fleet of burning 
vessels, drifting slowly along the shore. The fire next spread to the 
buildings, and before it could be arrested had destroyed the main business 



234 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

portion of the city. It was the most appalling calamity that had ever 
visited St. Louis; and followed as it was by the great cholera scourge of 
1849, it was a terrible disaster. At the levee there were destroyed twenty- 
three steam-boats, three barges, and one small boat. The total valuation 
of boats and cargoes was estimated at about $440,000, and the insurance 
was but $225,000; but this was not all paid, for the fire broke up several 
of the insurance companies." 

Ice also plays an important part in the game of steamboat 
killing. The season on the upper river is short at best. An 
early start in the spring, before the railroads had yet reached 
St. Paul, brought the greatest financial returns to the daring 
and successful captains who, bringing their boats through all the 
dangers, arrived safely in harbor at the head of navigation. Great 
chances were taken in the fifties, in trying to get through Lake 
Pepin before it was clear of ice. The river above and below 
was usually clear two weeks before the ice was out of the lake 
sufficiently to enable a boat to force its way through. During 
the last week of such embargo, boats were constantly butting the 
ice at either end of the lake, trying to get up or down, or were 
perilously coasting along the shore, where, from the shallowness 
of the water and the inflow from the banks, the ice had rotted 
more than in the centre of the lake. A change of wind, or a 
sudden freshening, catching a boat thus coasting along the shore, 
would shove her on to the rocks or sand, and crush her hull as 
though it were an eggshell. The 'Tails City" was thus caught 
and smashed. I myself saw the 'Tire Canoe" crushed flat, in 
the middle of the lake, a little below Wacouta, Minn., she having 
run down a mile or more in the channel which we had broken 
with the "Fanny Harris". We had just backed out, for Captain 
Anderson had seen signs of a rising wind out of the west, that 
would shut the ice into our track. This result did follow after 
the other boat had gone in, despite the well-meant warnings of 
Anderson, who hailed the other boat and warned them of the 
rising wind and the danger to be apprehended. This caution 
was ignored by the "Fire Canoe's" captain, who ran his boat 
down into the channel that we had broken. The ice did move 
as predicted, slowly, so slowly as to be imperceptible unless you 
sighted by some stationary object. But it was as irresistible as 
fate, and it crushed the timbers of the "Fire Canoe" as though 
they were inch boards instead of five-inch planks. The rending 



KILLING STEAMBOATS 237 

of her timbers was plainly heard two miles away. The upper 
works were left on the ice, and later we ran down and picked 
the crew and passengers off the wreck. When the wind changed 
and blew the other way, the cabin was turned over and ground 
to splinters amid the moving cakes. 

In 1857 the "Galena" was the first boat through the lake 
(April 30th). There were twelve other boats in sight at one 
time, all butting the ice in the attempt to force a passage and be 
the first to reach St. Paul. Of the boats lost on the Missouri River 
between 1842 and 1897, twenty-six were lost from ice; on the 
upper Mississippi, up to 1863, ten boats succumbed to the same 
destroyer. 

Not only in Lake Pepin, in the early spring, was this danger 
to be apprehended ; but in autumn also, in the closing days of 
navigation, when the young "anchor ice" was forming, and drifting 
with the current, before it had become attached to the banks, 
and formed the winter bridge over the river. This was a most 
insidious danger. The new ice, just forming under the stress 
of zero weather, cut like a knife; and while the boat might feel 
no jar from meeting ice fields and solitary floating cakes, all the 
time the ice was eating its way through the firm oak planking, 
and unless closely watched the bow of the boat would be ground 
down so thin that an extra heavy ice floe, striking fairly on the 
worn planking, would stave the whole bow in, and the boat would 
go to the bottom in spite of all attempts to stop the leak. The 
"Fanny Harris" was thus cut down by floating ice and sank in 
twenty feet of water, opposite Point Douglass, being a total 
loss. Ordinarily, boats intending to make a late trip to the north 
were strengthened by spiking on an extra armor sheathing of 
four-inch oak plank at the bow, and extending back twenty or 
thirty feet. 

It is a singular fact that the greatest damage from ice 
was not experienced at the far north of the upper river, but at 
the southern extremity of the run ; although many other boats 
were lost on the upper reaches, at wide intervals of time and 
place. St. Louis was a veritable killing place for steamboats, 
from the ice movements. This may be accounted for from the 
reason that so many boats wintered at St. Louis. When a break- 
up of extraordinary magnitude or unseasonableness did occur, it 

14 



238 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

had a large number of boats to work upon. Again, the season 
of cold, while long and severe on the upper river, was distinctly 
marked as to duration. There was no thawing and freezing 
again. When the river closed in November, it stayed closed until 
the latter end of March, or the early days of April. Then, when 
the ice went out, that ended the embargo; there was no further 
danger to be feared. Boats did not usually leave their snug- 
harbors until the ice had run out; and when they did start, they 
had only Lake Pepin to battle with. At St. Louis, on the con- 
trary, the most disastrous break-ups came unseasonably and unex- 
pectedly, with the result that the great fleet of boats wintering 
there were caught unprepared to meet such an emergency, and 
many were lost. 

Two such disastrous movements of the ice were experienced 
at St. Louis, the first in 1856, the other in 1876. The former 
"break-up" occurred February 27, and resulted in the destruction 
of a score of the finest boats in the St. Louis trade, and the 
partial wrecking of as many more. It put out of commission 
In a few hours nearly forty boats, a catastrophe unequalled in 
magnitude, either before or since, in the annals of the river. The 
disaster was not caused in the usual way, by the thawing of 
the ice. In that case it would not have been so disastrous, if 
indeed to be feared at all, that being the usual and normal manner 
of clearing the river in the spring. The winter had been very 
cold, the ice was two or three feet thick, and the water very 
low. In this case the movement of the ice was caused by a 
sudden rise in the river from above, which caused the ice to 
move before it was much, if any, disintegrated. It was an ap- 
palling and terrible exhibition of the power of the Great River 
when restrained in its course. The following account is from a 
St. Louis paper, printed at the time: 

"The ice at first moved very slowly and without any perceptible 
shock. The boats lying above Chestnut Street were merely shoved ashore. 
Messrs. Eads & Nelson's Submarine boat No. 4, which had just finished 
work on the wreck of the "Parthenia", was almost immediately capsized, 
and became herself a hopeless wreck. Here the destruction commenced. 
The "Federal Arch" parted her fastenings and became at once a total 
wreck. Lyinji; below her were the steamers "Australia", "Adriatic", 
"Brunette", "Paul Jones", "Falls City", "Altoona", "A. B. Chambers", and 
the "Challenge", all of which were torn away from shore as easily as 
if they had been mere skiffs, and floated down with the immense fields of 



KILLING STEAMBOATS 239 

ice. The shock and the crashing of these boats can better be imagined than 
described. All their ample fastenings were as nothing against the enor- 
mous flood of ice, and they were carried down apparently fastened and 
wedged together. The first obstacles with which they came in contact 
were a large fleet of wood-boats, flats, and canal boats. These small fry 
were either broken to pieces, or were forced out on to the levee in a very 
damaged condition. There must have been at least fifty of these smaller 
water craft destroyed, pierced by the ice, or crushed by the pressure of 
each against the other. 

"In the meantime some of the boats lying above Chestnut Street fared 
badly. The "F. X. Aubrey" was forced into the bank and was consider- 
ably damaged. The noble "Nebraska", which was thought to be in a 
most perilous position, escaped with the loss of her larboard wheel and 
some other small injuries. A number of the upper river boats lying above 
Chestnut Street, were more or less damaged. Both the Alton wharf-boats 
were sunk and broken in pieces. The old "Shenandoah" and the "Sara 
Cloon" were forced away from the shore and floated down together, lodg- 
ing against the steamer "Clara", where they were soon torn to pieces and 
sunk by a collision with one of the ferry-boats floating down upon them. 
The Keokuk wharf-boat maintained its position against the flood and saved 
three boats, the "Polar Star", "Pringle", and "Forest Rose", none of which 
were injured. 

"After running about an hour the character of the ice changed and it 
came down in a frothy, crumbled condition, with an occasional solid piece. 
At the end of two hours it ran very slowly, and finally stopped at half 
past five o'clock, P. M. Just before the ice stopped and commenced to 
gorge, huge piles, twenty and thirty feet in height were forced up by the 
current on every hand, both on the shore and at the lower dike, where 
so many boats had come to a halt. In fact these boats seemed to be liter- 
ally buried in ice. 

"The levee on the morning after the day of the disaster presented a 
dreary and desolate spectacle, looking more like a scene in the polar 
regions than in the fertile and beautiful Mississippi Valley. The Missis- 
sippi, awakened from her long sleep, was pitching along at a wild and 
rapid rate of speed, as if to make up for lost time. The ice-coat of mail 
was torn into shreds, which lay strewn along the levee, and was in some 
places heaped up to a height of twenty feet above the level of the water. 
Where the boats had lain in crowds only a few hours before, nothing 
was to be seen save this high bulwark of ice, which seemed as if it had 
been left there purposely to complete the picture of bleak desolation. The 
whole business portion of the levee was clear of boats, except the two 
wrecked Alton wharf-boats, which were almost shattered to pieces, and 
cast like t03's upon the shore in the midst of the ridge of ice. There was 
not a single boat at the levee which entirely escaped injury by the mem- 
orable breaking up of the ice on February 27, 1856." 



Chapter XXX 

Living It Over Again 

One day in the spring of 1881, after having finished the 
business that had called me to St. Paul from my home in River 
Falls, Wisconsin (where I was a railway agent and newspaper 
proprietor combined), I was loafing about the Grand Central 
Station, killing time until my train should be ready to start. The 
big whistle of a big boat drew me to the adjacent wharf of the 
Diamond Jo Line. The craft proved to be the "Mary Morton". 
As soon as the lines were fast, the stages in position, and the 
first rush of passengers ashore, I walked aboard and up to the 
office. A small man, past middle life, his hair somewhat gray, 
was writing in a big book which I recognized as the passenger 
journal. By the same token I realized that I was in the presence 
of the chief clerk, even if I had not already seen the "mud" 
clerk hard at work on the levee, checking out freight, I spoke 
to the occupant of the office, and after a few questions and 
counter questions I learned that he was Charley Mathers, who 
had been on the river before i860 as chief clerk, and he in turn 
learned my name and former standing on the river. From him 
I learned that the chief pilot of the steamer was Thomas Burns. 
It did not take a great while to get up to the pilot house. I would 
not have known my old chief had I not been posted in advance 
by Mr. Mathers. This man was grey instead of brown, and 
had big whiskers, which the old Tom did not have. He was 
sitting on the bench, smoking his pipe and reading a book. He 
looked up as I entered, and questioned with his eyes what the 
intrusion might mean, but waited until I should state my business. 
It took some minutes to establish my identity; but when I did 
I received a cordial welcome. 

And then we talked of old times and new, and war times 



LIVING IT OVER AGAIN 241 

too — for he had gone out as captain in an Illinois regiment at 
the same time that I went out as a Wisconsin soldier. From a 
pilot's view point the old times were simply marvelous as com- 
pared with the present. A hundred and fifty dollars a month, 
now, as against six hundred then; and a "wild" pilot, picking 
up seventeen hundred dollars in one month as was done by one 
man in 1857. Now he couldn't catch a wild boat if he waited 
the season through — there are none. We went over the river, 
the steamboats, and the men as we knew them in i860; and then 
we went down below and hunted up George McDonald, the good 
old Scotchman, who never swore at you through the speaking 
tube, no matter how many bells you gave him in a minute, and who 
never got rattled, however fast you might send them ; who never 
carried more steam than the license called for, and who never miss- 
ed a day's duty. The same banter had to be gone through with, 
with the same result — he had forgotten the slim youth who 
"shipped up" for him twenty years ago, but whom he promptly 
recalled when given a clue. And then, it being train time, we 
all walked across to the station and Burns invited me to take a 
trip with him, next time, down to St. Louis and back, and work 
my way at the wheel. 

I knew that I had not yet been weaned from the spokes, and 
doubted if I ever should be. I said that I would try, and I did. 
I filed an application for the first leave of absence I had ever 
asked for from the railroad company, and it was granted. I 
found a man to assist the "devil" in getting out my paper, he 
doing the editing for pure love of editing, if not from love 
of the editor. We set our house in order, packed our trunk and 
grips, and when the specified fortnight was ended, w^e (my wife, 
my daughter, and myself) were comfortably bestowed in adjoining 
staterooms in the ladies' cabin of the "Mary Morton", and I 
was fidgeting about the boat, watching men "do things" as I 
had been taught, or had seen others do, twenty years ago or more. 

The big Irish mate bullied his crew of forty "niggers", 
driving them with familiar oaths, to redoubled efforts in getting 
in the "last" packages of freight, which never reached the last. 
Among the rest, in that half hour, I saw barrels of mess pork — a 
whole car load of it, which the "nigger" engine was striking down 
into the hold. Shades of Abraham! pork out of St. Paul! Twenty 



242 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

years before, I had checked out a whole barge load (three hundred 
barrels) through from Cincinnati, by way of Cairo. Cincinnati 
was the great porkopolis of the world, while Chicago was yet 
keeping its pigs in each back yard, and every freeholder "made" 
his own winter's supply of pork for himself. The steward in 
charge of the baggage was always in the way with a big trunk 
on the gangway, just as of old. The engineers were trying their 
steam, and slowly turning the wheel over, with the waste cocks 
open, to clear the cylinders of water. The firemen were coaxing 
the beds of coal into fiercer heats. The chief clerk compared 
the tickets which were presented by hurrying passengers, with 
the reservation sheet, and assigned rooms, all "the best", to others 
who had no reservations. The "mud" clerk checked his barrels 
and boxes, and scribbled his name fiercely and with many flourishes 
to last receipts. The pilot on watch, Mr. Burns, sat on the 
window ledge in the pilot house, and waited. The captain stood 
by the big bell, and listened for the "All ready. Sir!" of the 
mate. As the words were spoken, the great bell boomed out one 
stroke, the lines slacked away and were thrown off the snubbing 
posts. A wave of the captain's hand, a pull at one of the knobs 
on the wheel-frame, the jingle of a bell far below, the shiver of 
the boat as the great wheel began its work, and the bow of the 
"Mary Morton" swung to the south; a couple of pulls at the 
bell-ropes, and the wheel was revolving ahead ; in a minute more 
the escape pipes told us that she was "hooked up", and with full 
steam ahead we were on our way to St. Louis. And I was again 
in the pilot house with my old chief, who bade me "show us 
what sort of an education you had when a youngster". 

Despite my forty years I was a boy again, and Tom 
Burns was the critical chief, sitting back on the bench with his 
pipe alight, a comical smile oozing out of the corners of mouth 
and eyes, for all the world like the teacher of old. 

The very first minute I met the swing of the gang-plank 
derrick (there is no jack stafif on the modern steamboat, more's 
the pity), with two or three spokes when one would have been 
a plenty, yawing the boat round "like a toad in a hailstorm", as 
I was advised. I could feel the hot blood rushing to my cheeks, 
just as it did twenty years before under similar provocation, 
when the eye of the master was upon me. I turned around and 





Steamer "Mary Morton," ISTlJ; 456 tons. LyiiiK al the kvec, La 
Crosse, Wisconsin. ( From a negative made in 1881 . ) 

STEAMER "Arkansas," 1868; ",49 tons. With tow of four barges, 
capable of transporting 18,000 sacks -36,000 bushels of wheat per trip. 
The usual manner of carrying wheat in the early days, before the river 
traffic was destroyed by railroad competition. 



LIVING IT OVER AGAIN 245 

found that Mr. Burns had taken it in, and we both laughed 
like boys — as I fancy both of us were for the time. 

But I got used to it very soon, getting the "feel of it", and 
as the "Mary Morton" steered like a daisy I lined out a very 
respectable wake; although Tona tried to puzzle me a good deal 
with questions as to the landmarks, most of which I had forgotten 
save in a general way. 

When eight bells struck, Mr. Link, Mr. Burns's partner, 
came into the pilot house ; that let me out, and after an intro- 
duction by Mr. Burns, Mr. Link took the wheel. He was a 
young man, of perhaps thirty years of age. We lingered a few 
minutes to watch him skilfully run Pig's Eye, and then went 
down to dinner, and had introductions all around — to Cap- 
tain Boland, Mr. Mathers, Mr. McDonald, and other officers. 

I took the wheel again, later in the afternoon. It was easy 
steering, and there was no way of getting out of the channel, for 
a time; and later I found that some things were taking on a 
familiar look — that I had not forgotten all of the river, and 
things were shaping themselves, as each new point or bend was 
reached, so that very little prompting was necessary. 

I had the wheel from Pine Bend to Hastings, where I was 
given permission to step on the end of a board lever fixed in the 
floor of the pilot house, on one side of the wheel, and give the 
signal of the Diamond Jo Line for the landing — two long blasts, 
followed by three short ones. Here was another innovation. In 
old times you had to hold your wheel with one hand while you 
pulled a rope to blow for a landing, which was sometimes a little 
awkward. This was a very little thing, but it went with the 
landing-stage derrick, the electric search-light, and a score of other 
improvements that had come aboard since I walked ashore two 
decades before. 

A mile or two below Hastings I saw the "break" on the 
surface of the water which marked the resting-place of the "Fanny 
Harris", on which I had spent so many months of hard work, 
but which, looked back upon through the haze of twenty years, 
now seemed to have been nothing but holiday excursions. 

At Prescott I looked on the familiar water front, and into 
the attic windows where with my brother I had so often in 
the night watches studied the characteristics of boats landing at 



246 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

the levee. Going ashore I met many old-time friends, among 
whom was Charles Barnes, agent of the Diamond Jo Line, who 
had occupied the same office on the levee since 1858, and had 
met every steamboat touching the landing during all those years. 
He was the Nestor of the profession, and was one of the very 
few agents still doing business on the water front who had begun 
such work prior to i860. Since then, within a few years past, 
he also has gone, and that by an accident, while still in the 
performance of duties connected with the steamboat business. 

Dropping rapidly down the river, we passed Diamond Bluff 
without stopping, but rounded to at Red Wing for passengers and 
freight, and afterward headed into a big sea on Lake Pepin, 
kicked up by the high south wind that was still blowing. We 
landed under the lee of the sand-spit at Lake City, and after getting 
away spent the better part of an hour in picking up a barge load 
of wheat, that was anchored out in the lake. 

By a wise provision of the rules for the government of pilots, 
adopted since I left the river, no one is permitted in the pilot 
house except the pilot on watch, or his partner, after the side- 
lights have been put up. For this reason I could not occupy my 
chosen place at the wheel after sunset; but I found enough to 
occupy my time down below in the engine-room, watching the 
great pitman walk out and in, to and from the crank-shaft, 
listening to the rush of the water alongside as it broke into a 
great wave on either side, and to the churning of the wheel, and 
all the while discussing old times with George McDonald. As 
the wind was still high and the water rough, I had an opportunity 
to see Mr. McDonald answer bells, which came thick and furious 
for a good while before we were well fast to the levee at Reed's 
Landing. There was no excitement, however, and no rushing 
from side to side as in the old days, to "ship up". He stood 
amidship, his hand on the reversing bar, just as a locomotive engi- 
neer sits with his hand on the bar of his engine. When the bell 
rang to set her back, he pulled his lever full back, and then opened 
his throttle without moving a step. After getting started, and 
under full way, he simply "hooked her back" three or four notches, 
and the old-time "short link" operation had been performed with- 
out taking a step. A great advance in twenty years! But why 
wasn't it thought of fifty years ago? I don't know. The same 



LIVING IT OVER AGAIN 247 

principle had been in use on locomotives from the start. It is 
simple enough now, on steamboat engines. Perhaps none of the 
old-timers thought of it. 

I turned in at an early hour, and lay in the upper berth, 
listening to the cinders skating over the roof a couple of feet 
above my face, and translating the familiar sounds that reached 
me from engine-room and roof — the call for the draw at the 
railroad bridge, below the landing; the signal for landing at 
Wabasha; the slow bell, the stopping-bell, the backing-bell, and 
a dozen or twenty unclassified bells, before the landing was fully 
accomplished ; the engineer trying the water in the boilers ; the 
rattle of the slice-bars on the sides of the furnace doors as the 
firemen trimmed their fires; and one new and unfamiliar sound 
from the engine-room — the rapid exhaust of the little engine 
driving the electric generator, the only intruder among the other- 
wise familiar noises, all of which came to my sleepy senses as 
a lullaby. 

I listened for anything which might indicate the passage of 
the once dreaded Beef Slough bar, but beyond the labored breathing 
of the engines, that at times indicated shoaling water, there was 
nothing by which to identify our old-time enemy. So listening, 
I fell asleep. 

"Breakfast is ready, sah", was the pleasant proclamation 
following a gentle rapping on the stateroom door. Very refresh- 
ing, this, compared with the sharp manifesto of the olden-days 
watchman: "Twelve o'clock; turn out"! 

The "Morton" was ploughing along between Victory and 
De Soto. By the time justice had been done to the well-cooked 
and well-served meal, the boat had touched at the latter port and 
taken on a few sacks of barley (potential Budweiser), consigned 
to one of the big St. Louis breweries. Mr. Link was at the 
wheel, and as a good understanding had been reached the day 
before, there was no question as to who was going to do the 
steering. Mr. Link took the bench and talked river as only a 
lover could talk, while I picked out the course by the aid of 
diamond boards and ancient landmarks, without asking many 
questions. A suggestion now and then: "Let her come in a 
little closer". "Now you may cross over". "Look out for the 



248 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

snag in the next bend", and like cautions were all that was 
necessary. 

And the pleasure of it! The beautiful morning in June, 
the woods alive with songbirds; the bluffs and islands a perfect 
green; the river dimpling under the caresses of a gentle breeze, 
and blushing rosy under the ardent gaze of the morning sun — a 
picture of loveliness not to be outdone anywhere in the wide 
world. And then the sense of power that comes to one who has 
learned to handle a steamboat with a touch of the wheel, in taking 
a long bend, a mile or more in length, without moving the wheel 
an inch, the rudders so slightly angled as to guide the boat along 
the arc of a circle which would be ten miles in diameter, could 
it be extended to completion, and leaving a wake as true as 
if drawn by a pair of dividers! 

We did not go into Prairie du Chien, but with the glasses 
the old French town could be discerned across the island and 
the slough; it claims to be two hundred years old, and it looked 
its age. Time was when Prairie du Chien, the terminus of the 
railroad nearest to St. Paul and the upper river, gave promise 
of being a big city, the outlet and entrepot for the trade of a 
great territory. Her people believed in her, and in her great 
future. A dozen steamboats might be seen, on many occasions, 
loading merchandise from the railroad, or unloading grain and 
produce, in sacks and packages, destined to Milwaukee and Chi- 
cago. When I was second clerk I once checked out twenty 
thousand sacks of wheat in something over thirty-six hours, the 
cargo of boat and two barges. The wheat now goes through 
in bulk, in box cars loaded in Iowa and Minnesota, and they do 
not even change engines at Prairie du Chien, the roundhouse 
and division terminal being located at McGregor, on the west 
side of the Mississippi. 

At McGregor I saw Joseph Reynolds, at that time owner 
of five fine steamers, and manager of the Diamond Jo Line. 
Captain Burns pointed out a man dressed in a dark business 
suit, sitting on a snubbing post, lazily and apparently indifferently 
watching the crew handling freight, or looking over the steamer 
as if it were an unusual and curious sight. He did not speak 
to any of the officers while we were watching him, and Mr. 
Burns thought it very unlikely that he would. He did not come 



LIVING IT OVER AGAIN 249 

on board the boat at all, but sat and whittled the head of the 
post until we backed out and left him out of sight behind. Mr. 
Burns allowed that "Jo" was doing a heap of thinking all the 
time we were watching him, and that he probably did not think 
of the boat, as a present object of interest, at all. 

Joseph Reynolds began his river experience in 1867 with 
one small boat, carrying his own wheat, and towing a barge 
when the steamer could not carry it all. When we saw him 
holding down a snubbing post at McGregor he owned and oper- 
ated, under the title of the "Diamond Jo Line", the "Mary 
Morton", "Libbie Conger", "Diamond Jo", "Josephine", and 
"Josie", all well equipped and handsome steamers. Later, he 
added the "Sidney", the "Pittsburg", the "St. Paul", and the 
"Quincy", still larger and better boats. 

That night I witnessed for the first time the operation of 
the electric search-light as an aid to navigation. The night came 
on dark and stormy, a thunder shower breaking over the river 
as we were running the devious and dangerous Guttenburg chan- 
nel, about five or six miles below the town by that name. Instead 
of straining his eyes out of his head, hunting doubtful landmarks 
miles away, as we used to do, Mr. Link tooted his little whistle 
down in the engine-room, and instantly the light was switched 
on to the lantern at the bow of the boat. Lines running from 
the pilot house gave perfect control of the light, and it was flashed 
ahead until it lighted up the diamond boards and other shore-marks 
by which the crossings were marked and the best water indicated 
to the pilot. Under a slow bell he worked his way down the 
ugly piece of river without touching. He had the leads two or 
three times, just to assure himself, but apparently he could have 
made it just as well without them. 

A mile and a half above the mouth of Turkey River, in 
the very worst place of all, we found a big log raft in trouble, 
hung up on the sand, with a steamboat at each end working at 
it. They occupied so much of the river that it took Mr. Link 
over an hour to get past the obstruction, the search-light in the 
meantime turning night into day, and enabling him to look down 
on the timber and see just where the edge of the raft was. By 
backing and flanking he finally squeezed past, but not without 
scraping the sand and taking big chances of getting hung up 



250 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

himself. Coming back, we did hang up for an hour or more 
in the same place, a mile above the foot of Cassville Slough. 
Without the aid of the search-light it would have been impossible 
to have worked the steamer past the raft until daylight came. 
It is a wonderful aid to navigation, and it is as easy to run 
crooked places by night as by day, with its assistance. 

In St. Louis, after seeing Shaw's Garden and tasting the old 
French market, the best thing you can do is to go back to the 
levee and watch the river, the big Eads bridge, the boats, and 
the darkies. There may be no boats other than the one you came 
on and are going back upon, but you will not miss seeing the bridge, 
and you must not miss seeing the darkies. They are worth study- 
ing — much better than even imported shrubbery. 

There was an Anchor Line boat moored just below us the 
day we were there, a big side-wheeler, in the New Orleans trade, 
sixteen hundred tons. The "Mary Morton" was four hundred 
and fifty, and had shrunk perceptibly since the big liner came 
alongside. There were two or three other boats, little ones, ferries 
and traders, sprinkled along the three miles of levee. In 1857 
I have seen boats lying two deep, in places, and one deep in 
every place where it was possible to stick the nose of a steamboat 
into the levee — boats from New Orleans, from Pittsburg, from 
the upper Mississippi, from the Missouri, from the Tennessee 
and the Cumberland, the Red River and the Illinois, loaded with 
every conceivable description of freight, and the levee itself piled 
for miles with incoming or outgoing cargoes. Now, it was enough 
to make one sick at heart. It seemed as if the city had gone 
to decay. The passage of a train over the bridge every five 
minutes or less, each way, reassured one on that point, however, 
and indicated that there was still plenty of traffic, and that it 
was only the river that was dead, and not the city. 

In old times the steamboat crews were comprised principally 
of white men — that is, deck hands and roustabouts (or stevedores). 
The firemen may have been darkies, and the cabin crews were 
more than likely to have been, but the deck crews were generally 
white. Now, the deck crews are all colored men. They are a 
happy-go-lucky set, given to strong drink and craps, not to men- 
tion some other forms of vice. In old times the crews were hired 
by the month. The members of a modern deck crew never make 



LIVING IT OVER AGAIN 251 

two trips consecutively on the same boat. The boat does not 
lay long enough in St. Louis to give them time to spend ten days' 
wages, and then get sober enough, or hungry enough, to reship 
for another trip. Therefore, as soon as the last package of freight 
is landed, the crew marches to the window of the cleric's office 
opening out onto the guards, and gets what money is coming 
to each individual after the barkeeper's checks have been deducted. 
W^ith this wealth in hand the fellow makes a straight wake for 
one of the two or three score dives, rum-holes, and bagnios that 
line the levee. He seldom leaves his favorite inn until his money 
is gone and he is thrown out by the professional "bouncer" 
attached to each of these places of entertainment. 

The boat does not remain without a crew, however. While 
one of the clerks is paying off the old crew, another has gone out 
on the levee with a handful of pasteboard tickets, one for each 
man he desires to ship for the next round trip to St. Paul. 
Mounting the tallest snubbing post at hand, he is instantly sur- 
rounded by a shouting, laughing, pushing, and sometimes fighting 
mass of negroes, with an occasional alleged white man. This 
mob of men are clothed in every conceivable style of rags and 
tatters, and all are trying to get near the man on the post. 

After a minute's delay the clerk cries out: "All set! Stand 
by"! and gives his handful of tickets a whirl around his head, 
loosening them a few at a time, and casting them to every point of 
the compass so as to give all a fair chance to draw a prize. The 
crowd of would-be "rousters" jump, grab, wrestle, and fight 
for the coveted tickets, and the man who secures one and fights 
his way victoriously to the gang plank is at once recorded in the 
mate's book as one of the crew. The victorious darky comes 
up the gang plank showing every tooth in his head. It is the 
best show to be seen in St. Louis. 

"Why do they not go out and pick out the best men and hire 
them in a business-like and Christian-like manner?" inquires the 
unacclimated tourist. 

"Because this is a better and very much quicker way", says 
the mate, who knows whereof he speaks. "The nigger that can 
get a ticket, and keep it until he gets to the gang plank, is the 
nigger for me. He is the 'best man' ; if he wasn't he wouldn't 
get here at all. Some of 'em don't get here — they carry 'em 



252 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

off to the hospital to patch 'em up; sometimes they carry 'em off 
and plant 'em. There wasn't much of a rush to-day. You ought 
to see 'em in the early spring, when they are pretty hungry after 
a winter's freezing and fasting, and they want to get close to a 
steamboat boiler to get warm. There was not more'n three 
hundred niggers out there to-day. Last April there was a thou- 
sand, and they everlastingly scrapped for a chance to get close 
to the post. Some of 'em got their 'razzers', and sort of hewed 
their way in. The clerk got a little shaky himself. He was 
afraid they might down him and take the whole pack." 

"I shouldn't think that you would care to ship the men with 
'razzers' as you call them." 

"Oh, I don't mind that if they can tote well. Anyway, 
they all have 'em. They don't use them much on white men, 
anyhow. And then we look out for them. After we back out 
from here they will get enough to do to keep them busy. They 
don't carry any life insurance, and they don't want to fool with 
white folks, much." 

Having watched the mates handling the crew on the down 
trip one could form a pretty clear judgment why the "niggers" 
were not solicitous to "fool with" the white men with whom 
they were in contact while on the river. 

That night we steamed across to East St. Louis and took 
on three thousand kegs of nails for different ports on the upper 
river. These were carried on the shoulders of the newly-hired 
deck crew a distance of at least two hundred feet from the railroad 
freight house to the boat; every one of the forty men "toting" 
seventy-five kegs, each weighing a hundred and seven pounds. 
At the conclusion of this exercise it is safe to say that they were 
glad enough to creep under the boilers so soon as the boat pulled 
out from the landing. The next morning we were well on our 
way up the river. I steered most of the daylight watches for 
Mr. Link all the way upstream. He had a terrible cough, and 
was very weak, but had the hopefulness which always seems to 
accompany that dread disease (consumption), that he "would 
soon get over it". I was glad to relieve him of some hard work, 
and I was also greatly pleased again to have an opportunity to 
handle a big boat. Poor fellow, his hopefulness was of no avail. 
He died at his home in Quincy within two years of that time. 



LIVING IT OVER AGAIN 253 

We arrived at St. Paul on schedule time, with no mishaps to 
speak of, and I parted with regret from old and new friends on 
the boat, none of whom I have ever seen since that parting twenty- 
five years ago. Thomas Burns, Henry Link, George McDonald, 
and Captain Boland are all dead. Charles Mathers, the chief 
clerk, was living a few years ago at Cairo, an old man, long 
retired from active service. 

As we started to leave the boat, we were arrested by an 
outcry, a pistol shot, and the shouting of the colored deck hands, 
followed by the rush of the mate and the fall of one of the men, 
whom he had struck with a club or billet. Still another colored 
man lay groaning on the wharf, and a white man was binding 
up an ugly gash in his neck made by the slash of a razor. In 
a few minutes the clang of the patrol wagon gong was heard, as 
it responded to the telephone call, and two darkies were carried 
off, one to the hospital and the other to the jail. The slightly- 
interrupted work of toting nail kegs was then resumed. Thus 
the last sights and sounds were fit illustrations of river life as it 
is to-day, and as it was a half a century ago — strenuous and 
rough, indeed, but possessing a wonderful fascination to one who 
has once fallen under the influence of its spell. 



Append 



IX 



Appendix A 

List of Steamboats on the Upper Mississippi River, 
1823-1863 

In the following compilation I have endeavored to give as 
complete a history as possible of every boat making one or more 
trips on the upper Mississippi River — that is to say, above the 
upper rapids — prior to 1863, not counting boats engaged ex- 
clusively in the rafting business. Owing to the repetition of names 
as applied to different steamers, which were built, ran their 
course, and were destroyed, only to be followed by others bearing 
the same name, it is altogether likely that some have escaped 
notice. Others that may have made the trip have left no sign. 
In nearly every case the record is made either at St. Paul or at 
Galena. Whenever possible, the names of the master and clerk 
are given. Where boats were running regularly in the trade 
but one notation is made: "St. Paul, 1852; 1854; etc.", which 
might include twenty trips during the season. The record covers 
the period from 1823, when the first steamer, the "Virginia", 
arrived at St. Peters from St. Louis, with government stores for 
Fort Snelling, up to 1 863, one j^ear after the writer left the river. 
ADELIA — Stern-wheel; built at California, Pa., 1853; 127 tons; 
St. Paul, 1855; 1856; 1857— Capt. Bates, Clerk Wor- 
sham. 
ADMIRAL — Side-wheel; built at McKeesport, Pa., 1853; 245 
tons; 169 feet long, 26 feet beam; in St. Paul trade 
1854 — Capt. John Brooks; went into Missouri River 
trade; was snagged and sunk October, 1856, at head 
of Weston Island, in shallow water; had very little cargo 
at time ; was raised and ran for many years thereafter in 
Missouri River trade. 
ADRIATIC — Side-wheel; built at Shousetown, Pa., 1855; 424 
tons; was in great ice jam at St. Louis, February, 1856. 



258 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

ADVENTURE— In Galena trade 1837— Capt. Van Houtcn. 

A. G. MASON— Stern-wheel; built at West Brownsville, Pa., 
1855; 170 tons; in St. Paul trade 1855; 1856; 1857 — 
Captain Barry, Clerk Pearman. 

ALBANY — Very small boat; in Minnesota River trade 1861. 

ALEX. HAMILTON— Galena and St. Paul trade 1848— Cap- 
tain W. H. Hooper. 

ALHAMBRA— Stern-wheel; built at McKeesport, Pa., 1854; 
187 tons; Minnesota Packet Company, St. Paul trade 
1855 — Captain McGuire; 1856 — Captain W. H. Gab- 
bert; 1857 — Captain McGuire; same trade 1858; 1859; 
i860; 1861; 1862, in Dunleith Line, Captain William 
Faucette. 

ALICE — Stern-wheel; built at California, Pa., 1853; 72 tons; 
at St. Paul 1854. 

ALPHIA— Galena and St. Louis trade 1837. 

ALTOONA— Stern-wheel ; built at Brownsville, Pa., 1853; 66 
tons; was in great ice jam at St. Louis, February, 1856; 
at St. Paul 1857; sunk at Montgomery tow-head 1859. 

AMARANTH— (First)— Galena trade 1842— Captain G. W. 
Atchinson; slink at head of Amaranth Island 1842. 

AMARANTH— (Second)— At Galena, from St. Louis, April 
8, 1845. 

AMERICA — Sunk 1852, opposite Madison, Iowa. 

AMERICAN EAGLE — Cossen, master, burned at St. Louis, 
May 17, 1849; loss $14,000. 

AMERICUS— Stern-wheel; at St. Paul 1856. 

AMULET— At Galena, from St. Louis, April 9, 1846. 

ANGLER— St. Paul 1859. 

ANNIE — At Galena, on her way to St. Peters, April i, 1840. 

ANSON NORTHRUP— Minnesota River boat; was taken to 
pieces and transported to Moorhead in 1859, where she 
was put together again and run on the Red River of the 
North by Captain Edwin Bell for J. C. Burbank & Co., 
proprietors of the Great Northwestern stage lines. 

ANTELOPE— Minnesota River packet 1857; 1858; i860; 1861. 
One hundred and ninety-eight tons burden. 

ANTHONY WAYNE— Side-wheel; built 1844; in Galena & 
St. Louis trade 1845, 1846, and 1847 — Captain Morri- 



APPENDIX A 259 



son first, later Captain Dan Able; 1850 — Captain Able; 
went up to the Falls of St. Anthony 1850, first boat 
to make the trip; made a trip up the Minnesota River 
into the Indian country, as far as Traverse des Sioux 
with a large excursion party from St. Paul in 1850; 
went into Missouri River trade and sank March 25, 
1 85 1, three miles above Liberty Landing, Mo., being 
a total loss. 

ARCHER— At Galena, from St. Louis, Sept. 8, 1845; sunk by 
collision with steamer "Di Vernon", in chute between 
islands 521 and 522, five miles above mouth of Illinois 
River, Nov. 27, 1851; was cut in two, and sunk in 
three minutes, with a loss of forty-one lives. 

ARCOLA— St. Croix River boat, at St. Paul 1856; sunk in 
Lake Pepin 1857, cut down by ice. 

ARGO — Galena and St. Peters trade, 1846 — Captain Kennedy 
Lodwick; 1847 — Captain M. W. Lodwick, Clerk Rus- 
sell Blakeley; regular packet between Galena and St. 
Paul, including Stillwater and Fort Snelling; at Galena 
from St. Croix Falls 1847, with 100 passengers; sunk 
fall of 1847 at foot of Argo Island, above Winona, Minn. 

ARIEL — (First) — At Fort Snelling and St. Peters June 20, 
1838; August 27, 1838; Sept. 29, 1838, from Galena; 
1839 — Captain Lyon, at Fort Snelling April 14; made 
three other trips to Fort Snelling that season. She was 
built by Captain Thurston. 

ARIEL — (Second) — Built at Cincinnati, Ohio, 1854; 169 tons; 
Minnesota River packet 1861. 

ARIZONA — Stern-wheel — Captain Herdman, from Pittsburg, 
at St. Paul, 1857. 

ASIA — Stern-wheel; St. Paul trade 1853; made twelve trips 
between St. Louis and St. Paul during season. 

ATLANTA— At St. Paul, from St. Louis, Captain Woodruff, 
1857; again 1858. 

ATLANTIC— At St. Paul 1856— Captain Isaac M. Mason. 

ATLAS — Side-wheel; new at Galena, 1846 — Captain Robert A. 
Riley; at St. Peters, from Galena, 1846; sunk near 
head of Atlas Island. 

AUDUBON— Stern-wheel ; built at Murraysville, Pa., 1853; 



26o THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

191 tons; St. Paul trade 1855; Captain William Fisher 
made his initial trip as an independent pilot on this boat. 

AUNT LETTY— Side-wheel; built at Elizabeth, Pa., 1855; 304 
tons; in Northern Line, St. Louis and St. Paul, 1857 — 
Captain C. G. Morrison; 1859, same. 

BADGER STATE— Built at California, Pa., 1850; 127 tons; 
St. Paul trade 1855 and 1856; sunk at head of Mont- 
gomery tow-head 1856. 

BALTIMORE — Sunk, 1859, at Montgomery tow-head; hit 
wreck of "Badger State" and stove. Wreck of "Balti- 
more" lies on top of wreck of "Badger State". 

BANGOR— St. Paul 1857; 1859. 

BANJO — Show boat — first of the kind in the river; was at St. 
Paul in 1856; with a "nigger show". Was seated for 
an audience, and stopped at all landings along the river, 
giving entertainments. Captain William Fisher was 
pilot on her part of one season. 

BELFAST— At St. Paul 1857; 1859. 

BELLE GOLDEN— Stern-wheel; built at Brownsville, Pa., 
1854; 189 tons; at St. Paul 1855 — Captain I. M. Mason. 

BELMONT— At Galena, from St. Louis, April 9, 1846; again 
May 22, 1847. 

BEN BOLT— Side-wheel ; built at California, Pa., 1853; 228 
tons; at St. Paul, from St. Louis, 1855 — Captain Boyd; 
at St. Paul, 1856; 1857. 

BEN CAMPBELI^-Side-wheel; built at Shousetown, Pa., 1852; 
267 tons; in Galena & Minnesota Packet Co., 1852 — 
Captain M. W. Lodwick; rather slow, and too deep 
in water for upper river; at St. Paul 1853 — Capt. M. W. 
Lodwick; at St. Paul 1859. , 

BEN COURSIN— Stern-wheel; built at Cincinnati, Ohio, 1854; 
161 tons; at St. Paul 1856; 1857; sunk above mouth of 
Black River, near La Crosse, fall of 1857. 

BEN WEST— Side-wheel ; at St. Paul, from St. Louis, spring 
1855; went into Missouri River trade; struck bridge 
and sank near Washington, Mo., August, 1855. 

BERLIN— At St. Paul 1855; 1856; 1859. 

BERTRAND — Rogers, master, at Galena 1846; regular St. 



APPENDIX A 26] 



Louis packet; advertised for pleasure trip to St, Peters 
June 19, 1846. 

BLACKHAWK— Captain M. W. Led wick, 1852; bought that 
year by the Galena Packet Co., for a low water boat; ten 
trips to St. Paul 1853; Captain R, M. Spencer, opening 
season 1854, later O. H. Maxwell; 1855, Minnesota 
River packet, Capt. O. H. Maxwell; at St. Paul 1859. 

BLACK ROVER — Eleventh steamboat to arrive at Fort Snelling, 
prior to 1827. 

BON ACCORD— At Galena, from St. Louis, Captain Hiram 
Bersie, August 31, 1846; in Galena and upper river 
trade, same captain, 1847; in St. Louis and Galena trade 
1848, same captain. 

BRAZIL — (First) — Captain Orren Smith, at Galena April 4, 
1838; at Fort Snelling June 15, 1838; advertised for 
pleasure excursion from Galena to Fort Snelling, July 
21, 1839; advertised for pleasure excursion from Galena 
to Fort Snelling, 1840; sunk in upper rapids. Rock 
Island, 1 84 1, and total loss. 

BRAZIL — (Second) — Captain Orren Smith, new, arrived at 
Galena Sept. 24, 1842; 160 feet long, 23 feet beam; 
arrived at Galena from St. Peters, Minn., June 5, 1843- 

BRAZIL— (Third)— Stern-wheel; built at McKeesport, Pa., 
1854; 211 tons; at St. Paul 1856; 1857 — Captain Hight, 
from St. Louis; at St. Paul 1858. 

BRIDGEWATER— At Galena, from St. Louis, April 11, 1846. 

BROWNSVILLE— Snagged and sunk in Brownsville Chute, 
1849. 

BURLINGTON— (First)— At Galena, from St. Peters, June 
I7> 1837; at Fort Snelling, Captain Joseph Throckmor- 
ton, May 25, 1838, and again June 13, 1838; third trip 
that season, arrived at the Fort June 28, 1836, with 146 
soldiers from Prairie du Chien, for the Fort. 

BURLINGTON— (Second)— Sunk at Wabasha, prior to 1871; 
in Northern Line; built i860. 

BURLINGTON— (Third) —Large side-wheel, in Northren 
Line, 1875; St. Louis and St. Paul Packet. 

CALEB COPE— Galena & St. Paul Packet Company; in St. 
Paul 1852. 



262 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

CALEDONIA— In Galena trade, 1837. 

CAMBRIDGE— At St. Paul 1857. 

CANADA — Side-wheel, with double rudders; Northern Line 
Packet Co., Captain James Ward, 1857; 1858; 1859, 
as St. Louis and St. Paul packet ; Captain J. W. Parker, 
i860, 1 86 1, same trade; 1862, same trade. 

CARRIE — Stern-wheel; 267 tons; went into Missouri River trade 
and was snagged two miles above Indian Mission, August 
14, 1866; boat and cargo total loss; boat valued at 
$20,000. 

CARRIER — Side-wheel; 215 feet long, 33 feet beam; 267 tons; 
at St. Paul 1856; snagged at head of Penn's Bend, 
Missouri River, Oct. 12, 1858; sank in five feet of water; 
boat valued at $30,000; was total loss. 

CASTLE GARDEN— At St. Paul 1858. 

CAVALIER — At Galena April 9, 1836, for St. Louis; in Galena 
trade 1837. 

CAZENOVIA— At St. Paul 1858. 

CECILIA— Capt. Jos. Throckmorton, at St. Peters 1845. Bought 
by the captain for Galena & St. Peters trade. Same 
trade 1846, regular. 

CEYLON— Stern-wheel; at St. Paul 1858. 

CHALLENGE — Built at Shousetown, Pa., 1854; 229 tons; at 
St. Paul 1858. 

CHART— At St. Paul 1859. 

CHAS. WILSON— At St. Paul 1859. 

CHIPPEWA— (First)— Capt. Griffith, in Galena trade 1841 ; 
arrived at Galena from St. Peters May 2, 1843. 

CHIPPEWA— (Second)— Capt. Greenlee, from Pittsburg, at 
St. Paul, 1857; in Northwestern Line, Capt. W. H. 
Crapeta, St. Louis and St. Paul trade 1858; 1859; 
burned fifteen miles below Poplar River, on the Mis- 
souri, in May, 1861 ; fire discovered at supper time on 
a Sunday evening; passengers put on shore and boat 
turned adrift, she having a large amount of powder 
on board ; boat drifted across the river and there blew 
up; fire caused by deck hands going into hold with 
lighted candle to steal whiskey. She was a stern-wheel, 
160 feet long, 30 feet beam. 



APPENDIX A 263 



CHIPPEWA FALLS— Captain L. Fulton, in Chippewa River 
trade, 1859; stern-wheel. 

CITY BELLE— Side-wheel; built at Murraysville, Pa., 1854; 
216 tons; Minnesota Packet Co., Galena & St. Paul 
trade 1856 — Captain Kennedy Lodwick; 1857 — Cap- 
tain A. T. Champlin, for part of the season; 1858; 
burned on the Red River in 1862, while in government 
service; was a very short boat and very hard to steer, 
especially in low water. 

CLARA — Stern-wheel, of St. Louis; 567 tons burden, 250 horse- 
power engines; at St. Paul 1858. 

CLARIMA— At St. Paul 1859. 

CLARION — (First) — Went to Missouri River, where she was 
burned, at Guyandotte, May i, 1845. 

CLARION — (Second) — Stern-wheel; built at Monongahela, 
Pa., 1 851; 73 tons; made 25 trips up Minnesota River 
from St. Paul, 1853; same trade 1855; 1856 — Captain 
Hoffman ; 1857 > ^858 ; had a very big whistle, in keeping 
with her name — so large that it made her top heavy. 

COL. MORGAN— At St. Paul 1855; 1858. 

COMMERCE— At St. Paul, from St. Louis, 1857— Captain 
Rowley. 

CONESTOGA— St. Louis and St. Paul trade 1857— Captain 
James Ward, who was also the owner, 

CON EWAGO— Stern-wheel; built at Brownsville, Pa., 1854; 
186 tons; St. Louis and St. Paul Packet Co., 1855.* 
1856; 1857— Capt. James Ward; 1858; 1859. 

CONFIDENCE— At Galena, from St. Louis, Nov. 7, 1845; 
same April 1 1, 1846; same March 30, 1847. 

CON VOY— Stern-wheel ; built at Freedom, Pa., 1854; 123 
tons; at St. Paul 1857. 

CORA — Side-wheel; single engine; two boilers; hull built by 
Captain Jos. Throckmorton at Rock Island; 140 feet 
long, 24 feet beam, five feet hold; engine 18 inches by 
5 feet stroke, built at St. Louis. At Galena, on first 
trip, Sept. 30, 1846, Captain Jos. Throckmorton, in 
Galena and St. Peters trade; first boat at Fort Snelling 
1847, Captain Throckmorton; Galena and St. Peters 
trade 1848, same captain, also running to St. Croix 



264 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

Falls. Sold to go into Missouri River trade fall of 

1848; snagged and sunk below Council Bluffs, May 

5, 1850, drowning fifteen people. 
CORNELIA— Sunk, 1855, in Chain of Rocks, lower rapids; 

hit rock and stove. 
COURIER — Built at Parkersburg, Va., 1852; 165 tons; owned 

by W. E. Hunt; in St. Paul trade 1857. 
CREMONA— Stern-wheel ; built at New Albany, Ind., 1852; 

266 tons; in Minnesota River trade 1857 — Captain 

Martin. 
CUMBERLAND VALLEY— At Galena August 2, 1846; broke 

shaft three miles above Burlington, Aug. 18, 1846. 
DAISY— Small stern-wheel; St. Paul 1858. 
DAMSEL — Stern-wheel; 210 tons; in St. Paul trade i860; 1864, 

Farley, clerk; chartered as a circus boat, Charles Davis, 

pilot; snagged at head of Onawa Bend, Missouri River, 
'■A 1876; had on board the circus company, which was taken 

oiiE by Captain Joseph La Barge, in the steamer "John 

M. Chambers"; no lives lost; boat total loss. 
DAN CONVERSE— Stern-wheel; built at McKeesport, Pa., 

1852; 163 tons; at St. Paul 1855, and at other times; 

went into Missouri River trade and was snagged Nov. 

15, 1858, ten miles above St. Joseph, Mo.; total loss. 
DANIEL HILLMAN— At Galena May 25, 1847, from St. 

Louis. 
DANUBE— (First)— Sunk, 1852, below Campbell's Chain, Rock 

Island Rapids; hit rock and stove. 
DANUBE— (Second)— Stern-wheel; at St. Paul 1858. 
DAVENPORT— Side-wheel; built i860; in Northern Line; sunk 

by breaking of ice gorge at St. Louis, Dec. 13, 1876, but 

raised at a loss of $4,000. 
DENMARK— (First)— Sunk, 1840, at head of Atlas Island, 

by striking sunken log. 
DENMARK— (Second)— Side-wheel, double-rudder boat; Cap- 
tain R. C. Gray, in Northern Line, St. Louis & St. 

Paul, 1857, 1858, 1859, i860; 1861, same line, Captain 

John Robinson; 1862, same line. 
DES MOINES VALLEY— St. Paul 1856. 
DEW DROP— Stern-wheel ; 146 tons; at St. Paul 1857; 1858; 



APPENDIX A 265 



Capt. W. N. Parker, 1859, in Northern Line; went 
into Missouri River trade and was burned at mouth 
of Osage River, June, i860. 

DIOMED— St. Paul 1856. 

DI VERNON— (Second)— Built at St. Louis, Mo., 1850; cost 
$49,000; at St. Paul June 19, 1851; in collision with 
steamer "Archer" Nov. 27, 1851, five miles above mouth 
of Illinois River. (See "Archer".) 

DR. FRANKLIN— (First)— First boat of the Galena & Minne- 
sota Packet Co.; bought 1848; owned by Campbell & 
Smith, Henry L. Corwith, H. L. Dousman, Brisbois 
& Rice; M. W. Lodwick, Captain, Russell Blakeley, 
Clerk, Wm. Meyers, Engineer; first boat to have steam 
whistle on upper river; Captain Lodwick 1849; 1850; 
in Galena and St. Paul trade; Capt. Lodwick in 1851; 
took a large party on pleasure excursion from Galena 
to the Indian treaty grounds at Traverse des Sioux, 
Minnesota River; 1852, Captain Russell Blakeley, Clerk 
Geo. R. Melville; out of commission 1853; sunk at the 
foot of Moquoketa Chute 1854; total loss. 

DR. FRANKLIN— (Second)— Called "No. 2"; bought of Capt. 
John McClure, at Cincinnati, in the winter of 1848, 
by Harris Brothers — D, Smith, Scribe and Meeker — to 
run in opposition to "Dr. Franklin No. i"; Smith Harris, 
Captain; Scribe Harris, Engineer; 1850 went up to St. 
Anthony Falls; in 1851 was the last boat to leave St. 
Paul, Nov. 20; the St. Croix was closed and heavy 
ice was running in the river; Capt. Smith Harris 1852; 
made 28 trips to St. Paul in 1853; Capt. Preston Lod- 
wick, 1854. 

DUBUQUE— (First)— At Galena April 9, 1836, for St. Louis, 
Captain Smoker; lost, 1837; exploded boiler at Musca- 
tine Bar, eight miles below Bloomington. 

DUBUQUE— (Second)— At Galena April 20, 1847, Captain 
Edward H. Beebe; 162 feet long, 26 feet beam, 5 feet 
hold ; on her first trip ; regular St. Louis, Galena and 
Dubuque trade; same 1848; at Galena July 29, 1849, 
Captain Edward H. Beebe, loading for Fort Snelling; 
sunk above Mundy's Landing 1855. 



266 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

DUBUQUE— (Third)— Side-wheel, 603 tons; in Northern 
Line, St. Louis & St, Paul 1871. 

EARLIA— At St. Paul 1857. 

ECLIPSE — Eighth steamboat to arrive at Fort Snelling prior 
to 1827. 

EDITOR — Side-wheel; built at Brownsville, Pa., 1851; 247 
tons; very fast; St. Louis & St. Paul 1854 — Capt. Smith; 
same trade 1855 — Capt. J. F. Smith; 1856; 1857 — 
Captain Brady, Clerks R. M. Robbins and Charles 
Furman. 

EFFIE AFTON— At St. Paul 1856; small stern-wheel; hit 
Rock Island Bridge and sank, 1858; total loss. 

EFFIE DEANS— St. Paul 1858; Captain Joseph La Barge; 
burnt at St. Louis 1865. 

ELBE — In Galena trade 1840. 

ELIZA STEWART— At Galena May 26, 1848, from St. Louis, 
with 350 tons freight. Left for St. Louis, with lOO 
tons freight from Galena. 

EMERALD — In Galena trade 1837; sunk or burned 1837. 

EMILIE — (First) — Side-wheel, Capt. Joseph La Barge, Ameri- 
can Fur Company, at St. Peters, 1 84 1 ; snagged, 1842, 
in Emilie Bend, Missouri River. 

ENDEAVOR — Stern-wheel; built at Freedom, Pa., 1854; 200 
tons; at St. Paul 1857. 

ENTERPRISE— (First)— Small stern-wheel; twelfth boat to 
arrive at Fort Snelling, prior to 1827; again at the 
Fort June 27, 1832; sunk at head of Enterprise Island, 
1843. 

ENTERPRISE— (Second)— Small side-wheel boat from Lake 
Winnebago; owned and captained by Robert C. Eden, 
son of an English baronet, on an exploring and hunting 
expedition ; Geo. B. Merrick piloted for him for two 
months on the upper river and the St. Croix. 

ENTERPRISE— (Third)— Built in 1858, above the Falls of 
St. Anthony, to run between St. Anthony and Sauk 
Rapids. Work superintended by Capt. Augustus R. 
Young. Before the work was completed the boat was 
sold to Thomas Moulton, and when finished she was 
run above the Falls during 1859, i860, and 186 1. She 



APPENDIX A 267 



was officered by four brothers — Augustus R. Young, Cap- 
tain and Pilot; Jesse B. Young, Mate; Josiah Young, 
First Engineer, and Leonard Young, Second Engineer. 
Thomas Moulton and I. N. Moulton took turns in 
running as clerk. In 1863 she was sold to W. F. and 
P. S. Davidson, who moved her around St. Anthony- 
Falls on skids, and launched her in the river below. 
She ran as freight boat in the Davidson Line between 
La Crosse and St. Paul for several years, and was then 
sold to go south. She was a stern-wheel boat, 130 feet 
long, and 22 feet beam. The Youngs are dead, with 
the exception of Leonard. Captain I. N. Moulton is 
living (1908) at La Crosse, where he is engaged in the 
coal business. 

ENVOY— (First)— In Galena trade 1857. 

ENVOY— (Second)— Stern-wheel; built at West Elizabeth, Pa., 
1852; 197 tons; at St. Paul 1857 — Capt. Martin, Clerk 
E. Carlton ; at St. Paul 1858. 

EOLIAN — Stern-wheel; built at Brownsville, Pa., 1855; 205 
tons; in Minnesota River trade 1857 — Captain Troy; 
same trade 1858; 1859. 

EQUATOR — Stern-wheel; built at Beaver, Pa., 1853; 162 tons; 
in St. Paul trade 1855, 1856; Minnesota River 1857 — 
Captain Sencerbox; wrecked in great storm on Lake St. 
Croix April 1858 — Captain Asa B. Green, pilots Charles 
Jewell, Geo. B. Merrick; Engineer John Lay; Mate 
Russel Ruley. 

EXCELSIOR— Side-wheel; built at Brownsville, Pa., 1849; 172 
tons; St. Louis & St. Paul trade 1 850; Captain James 
Ward, owner and captain; same 1852; arrived at St. 
Paul Nov. 20, 1852, with 350 tons of freight, taken at 
$1.00 per hundredweight for any distance; over $8,0OO 
in the trip. In 1853 made 13 round trips from St. Louis 
to St. Paul ; "Billy" Henderson owned the bar on this 
boat and sold oranges and lemons, wholesale, along the 
river; 1854, Captain Owen; 1855, Capt. James Ward; 
1856, Capt. Kingman; 1857, Capt. Conway, in St. 
Paul trade. 



268 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

EXPRESS — One of the first boats to reach Fort Snelling prior 
to 1827. 

FALCON — Capt. Legrand Morehouse, St. Louis, Galena, Du- 
buque & Potosi regular packet 1845; same 1846; in 
August, in Galena and St. Peters trade, reports very 
low water at St. Peters; 1847, Capt. Morehouse, St. 
Louis and Galena regular packet. 

FALLS CITY— Stern-wheel ; built 1855, at Wellsville, Ohio, by 
St. Anthony Falls merchants, who ran her to the foot 
of the Falls in order to show that the river was naviga- 
ble to that point; 155 feet long, 27 feet beam, 3 boilers; 
Captain Gilbert, 1855; in St. Louis trade 1856, and got 
caught in great ice jam at St. Louis that year; Capt. 
Jackins, 1857; wintered above the lake and was sunk by 
ice in Lake Pepin in April, 1857. 183 tons. 

FAIRY QUEEN— At St. Paul 1856. 

FANNY HARRIS — Stern-wheel; 279 tons; built at Cincinnati, 
and owned by Dubuque merchants; put into St. Paul 
trade in 1855, from Dubuque and Dunleith, Capt. Jones 
Worden, Clerk Charles Hargus; same 1856; 1857, 
Capt. Anderson, Clerk Chas. Hargus, Second Clerk 
Geo. B. Merrick, in Galena, Dunleith & St. Paul Packet 
Co.; same 1858, 1859; Capt. W. H. Gabbert i860; 
wintered at Prescott; 1 861, Capt. William Faucette, 
Clerks Hargus and Merrick, Engineers McDonald and 
William Hamilton, Pilots James McCoy, Harry Tripp, 
James Black, Thomas Burns and Thomas Cushing, 
Mate "Billy" Wilson; went up Minnesota River in 
April, three hundred miles to bring down Sherman's 
Battery; Thos. Burns raised a company for the 45th 
Illinois in 1861; Capt. Faucette in command 1862; 
Merrick left her for the war in August, 1862; she was 
sunk by the ice at Point Douglass in 1863; Charles Har- 
gus died at Dubuque, August 10, 1878. 

FANNY LEWIS— Of St. Louis, at St. Paul. 

FAVORITE — Side-wheel; Minnesota River packet 1859; same 
i860, Capt. P. S. Davidson; transferred to La Crosse 
trade in i860; Capt. P. S. Davidson, 1861, in La Crosse 
trade; Minnesota River trade 1862; 252 tons burden. 



APPENDIX A 269 



FAYETTE— At Fort Snelling May 11, 1839; reported at St. 
Croix Falls May 12, 1839. 

FIRE CANOE— Stern-wheel ; built at Lawrence, Ohio, 1854; 
166 tons; at St. Paul May, 1855 — Captain Baldwin; 
1856; 1857 — Captain Spencer; in Minnesota River trade 
1858; sunk by ice in Lake Pepin, three miles below 
Wacouta, April, 1861; passengers and crew were taken 
off by "Fanny Harris", which was near her when she 
sank. 

FLEETWOOD— At St. Paul June 26, 1851. 

FLORA— Stern-wheel ; built at California, Pa., 1855; 160 tons; 
St. Paul trade 1855; Dubuque and St. Paul 1856, in 
Dubuque and St. Paul Packet Co. 

FOREST ROSE— Built at California, Pa., 1852; 205" tons; at 
St. Paul 1856. 

FORTUNE— Bought by Captain Pierce Atchison in April, 1845, 
at Cincinnati at a cost of $6,000, for St. Louis & Galena 
trade; same trade 1846; same 1847; sunk, Sept., 1847, 
on upper rapids. 

FRANK STEELE— Small side-wheel; length 175 feet; beam 
28 feet; Capt. W. F. Davidson, in Minnesota River 
trade 1857; same 1858; same trade, Capt. J. R. Hatch- 
er, 1859, and spring of i860; transferred to La Crosse 
& St. Paul trade i860, in Davidson's Line; same 1861 ; 
Minnesota River 1862. 

FRED LORENZ— Stern-wheel ; built at Belle Vernon, Pa., 
1855; 236 tons; Capt. Parker, St. Louis & St. Paul 
Line, 1857, 1858, 1859; in Northern Line Packet Co., 
St. Louis & St. Paul, Captain I. N. Mason, i860, 1861. 

FREIGHTER— In Minnesota River trade 1857, 1858; Captain 
John Farmer, 1859. She was sold, 1859, to Captain 
John B. Davis, who took a cargo for the Red River 
of the North, and attempted to run her via Lake Trav- 
erse and Big Stone Lake, and over the portage to Red 
River. His attempt was made too late in the season, on 
a falling river, with the result that the "Freighter" was 
caught about ten miles from Big Stone Lake and was a 
total loss. Her timbers remained for many years a 
witness to Captain Davis's lack of caution. 



270 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

FRONTIER— New 1836; built by D. S. and R. S. Harris, of 
Galena; Captain D. Smith Harris, Engineer R, Scribe 
Harris, arrived at Fort Snelling May 29, 1836. 

FULTON — Tenth steamboat to arrive at Fort Snelling prior to 
1827; at Galena, advertised for St. Peters, June, 1827. 

G. B. KNAPP — Small stern-wheel; 105 tons, built and command- 
ed by Geo. B. Knapp, of Osceola, Wisconsin; ran in 
the St. Croix River trade most of the time. 

G. H. WILSON — Small stern-wheel; built for tow-boat, and 
powerfully engined ; 159 tons; at St. Paul first 1857; 
afterward in Northern Line as low water boat; sunk 
opposite Dakota, Minnesota, 1862. 

G. W. SPARHAWK— Side-wheel; built at Wheeling, Va., 1851 ; 
243 tons; in St. Paul trade 1855; sunk one mile below 
Nininger, Minnesota. 

GALENA — (First) — Built at Cincinnati for Captain David G. 
Bates; Scribe Harris went from Galena to Cincinnati 
and brought her out as engineer, David G. Bates, Cap- 
tain; at Galena 1829, 1835, 1836, 1837. 

GALENA — (Second) — Captain P. Connolly, at Galena, in Ga- 
lena & St. Peters trade; nearly wrecked in great wind 
storm on Lake Pepin in June, 1845; J. W. Dinan, 
clerk, August 12, 1845; at Dubuque Nov. 28, 1845, at 
which time she reports upper river clear of ice, although 
Fever River is frozen so that boats cannot make that 
port; 1846, Captain Goll, Clerk John Stephens. 

GALENA— (Third)— Side-wheel; 296 tons; built 1854 at Cin- 
cinnati for Galena & Minnesota Packet Company; in 
St. Paul trade, D. B. Morehouse, 1854; Captain Russell 
Blakeley 1855; Captain Kennedy Lodwick, 1856; Cap- 
tain W. H. Laughton, 1857; first boat through lake 
1857, arriving at St. Paul at 2 A. M., May i; passed 
"Golden State" and "War Eagle" under way between 
Lake Pepin and St. Paul; there were twelve boats in 
sight when she got through; burned and sunk at Red 
Wing in 1857, the result of carelessness, a deck passen- 
ger having dropped a lighted match into some com- 
bustible freight; several lives lost; had 46 staterooms. 

GALENIAN— At Galena March 30, 1846. 



APPENDIX A 27] 



GENERAL BROOKE— Side-wheel; built 1842; Captain Joseph 
Throckmorton, at Galena, from St. Peters, May 26, 
1842; seven trips Galena to St. Peters, 1843; at Galena 
1845; sold to Captain Joseph La Barge, of St. Louis, in 
1845, for $12,000, to run on the Missouri; continued 
in that trade until 1849, when she was burned at St. 
Louis levee. 

GENERAL PIKE— Side-wheel; built at Cincinnati, Ohio, 1852; 
245 tons; at St. Paul 1857; 1859. 

GIPSEY— (First)— In Galena trade, 1837; at Galena, for St. 
Peters, 1838; at Fort Snelling with treaty goods for 
Chippewa Indians, Oct. 21, 1838; Captain Gray, at 
Fort Snelling, May 2, 1839. 

GIPSEY— (Second)— Stern-wheel; built at California, Pa., 
1855; 132 tons; at St. Paul, 1855; 1856. 

GLAUCUS — Captain G. W. Atchison, in Galena trade, 1839; 
at Fort Snelling, May 21, 1839, and again June 5, 1839. 

GLENWOOD— At St. Paul 1857. 

GLOBE — Captain Haycock, in Minnesota River trade, 1854, 
1855, 1856. 

GOLDEN EAGLE— At St. Paul 1856. 

GOLDEN ERA— Side-wheel; built at Wheeling, Va., 1852; 
249 tons; in Minnesota Packet Company; Captain Hi- 
ram Bersie, 1852; Captain Pierce Atchison, at St. Paul, 
from Galena, May, 1855; later in season Captain J. W. 
Parker, Dawley, clerk; Captain Parker, 1856; Captain 
Sam Harlow and Captain Scott in 1857, i" Galena, 
Dunleith & St. Paul Line; same line 1858; Captain 
Laugiiton, in La Crosse & St. Paul Line 1859; Captain 
Laughton, in Dunleith Line i860; Captain W. H. 
Gabbert, in Dunleith Line 1 861. 

GOLDEN STATE— Side-wheel; built at McKeesport, Pa., 
1852; 298 tons; 1856— Captain N. F. Webb, Chas. 
Hargus, clerk; 1857, Captain Scott, Clerk Frank Ward, 
in Galena, Dunleith & St. Paul Line; at St. Paul 1859. 

GOODY FRIENDS— At St. Paul 1859. 

GOSSAMER— At St. Paul 1856. 

GOV. BRIGGS— At Galena July 23, 25, and 28, 1846, in Ga- 
lena & Potosi run. 



272 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

GOV. RAMSEY— Built by Captain John Rawlins, above the 
Falls of St. Anthony, to run between St. Anthony and 
Sauk Rapids; machinery built in Bangor, Maine, and 
brought by way of New Orleans and up the Mississippi 
River. 

GRACE DARLING— At St. Paul 1856. 

GRAND PRAIRIE— Side-wheel; built at Gallipolis, Ohio, 1852; 
261 tons; made three trips from St. Louis to St. Paul 
1853; in St. Paul trade 1856. 

GRANITE STATE— Side-wheel; built at West Elizabeth, Pa., 
1852; 295 tons; in Minnesota Packet Company, 1856 — 
Captain J. Y. Hurd; 1857 — Captain W. H. Gabbert, 
Galena, Dunleith & St. Paul Line. 

GREEK SLAVE— Side-wheel ; Captain Louis Robert, 1852; 
made 18 trips Rock Island to St. Paul in 1853; St. Paul 
trade 1854; Captain Wood 1855; St. Paul trade 1856. 

GREY CLOUD— Side-wheel; built at Elizabeth, Ky., 1854; 
246 tons; St. Louis & St. Paul trade 1854; 1855. 

GREY EAGLE — Large side-wheel; built at Cincinnati, Ohio, 
by Captain D. Smith Harris, for the Minnesota Packet 
Company; cost $63,000; length 250 feet; beam 35 feet; 
hold 5 feet; four boilers, 42 inches diameter, 16 feet 
long; cylinders 22 inches diameter, 7 feet stroke; wheels 
30 feet diameter, 10 feet buckets, 3 feet dip; 673 tons 
burden; launched spring of 1857; Captain D. Smith 
Harris, Clerks John S. Pirn and F. M. Gleim; Engi- 
neers Hiram Hunt and William Briggs; in Galena, Dun- 
leith & St. Paul trade 1857, 1858 and 1859; in St. 
Louis and St. Paul trade i860, 1861 ; sunk by striking 
Rock Island Bridge, May 9, 1861, at 5 o'clock in the 
evening going downstream. Captain Harris was in 
the pilot house with the rapids pilot when a sudden gust 
of wind veered her from her course and threw her 
against the abutment; she sank in less than five minutes, 
with the loss of seven lives. Captain Harris sold out 
all his interest in the Packet Company and retired from 
the river, broken-hearted over the loss of his beautiful 
steamer, which was the fastest boat ever in the upper 
river. She had made the run from Galena to St. Paul 



APPENDIX A 273 



at an average speed of i6>4 miles per hour, delivering 
her mail at all landings during the run. 

H. S. ALLEN — Small stern-wheel; Minnesota River boat 1856, 
1857, 1858, 1859; after i860 went into St. Croix River 
trade as regular packet between Prescott and St. Croix 
Falls, Captain William Gray, Pilots Chas. Jewell, Geo. 
B. Merrick. 

H. T. YEATMAN— Stern-wheel ; built at Freedom, Pa., 1852; 
165 tons; wintered above lake, at Point Douglass, 1856- 
7; left St. Paul for head of Lake, April 10, 1857, and 
was sunk at Hastings by heading into rocks at levee, 
staving hole in bow; drifted down and lodged on bar 
one-half mile below landing; in Minnesota River trade 
1855, 1856. 

H. M. RICE— Minnesota River packet 1855. 

HAMBURG— Large side-wheel; Captain J. B. Estes, Clerk 
Frederick K. Stanton, Dubuque and St. Paul packet, 
1855; Captain Rowe, St. Louis k St. Paul trade 1856, 
1857; at St. Paul 1858. 

HANNIBAL CITY— Sunk, 1855, at foot of Broken Chute. 

HARMONIA — Stern-wheel; Captain Allen, at St. Paul, from 
Fulton City, Iowa, 1857. 

HASTINGS— At St. Paul 1859- 

HAWKEYE STATE— Large side-wheel; in Northern Line; at 
St. Paul 18.59; same trade, Captain R. C. Gray, i860, 
1 86 1, St. Louis & St. Paul; same line 1862; 523 tons; 
made 14 trips St. Louis to St. Paul 1866. 

HAZEL DELL— At St. Paul 1858. 

HEILMAN — Sunk 1856, half way between Missouri Point and 
second ravine below Grafton, Mo. 

HELEN — At Galena April 11, 1846, from St. Louis. 

HENRIETTA— Stern-wheel; built at California, Pa., 1853; 179 
tons; 2 trips to St. Paul, 1853; 1854 — Captain C. B. 
Goll; St. Paul trade 1855, 1856, 1858, 1859- 

HENRY CLAY— New 1857; in Northern Line; Captain Camp- 
bell 1857; Captain Chas. Stephenson 1858; at St. Paul 
1859; Captain Chas. Stephenson i860; Captain C. B. 
Goll 1861 ; sunk by Confederate batteries at Vicksburg 
1863. 



274 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

HENRY GRAFF— Stern-wheel ; built at Belle Vernon, Pa., 
1855; 250 tons; St. Paul 1856; 1857 — Captain McClin- 
tock. Clerk Stewart, at St. Paul from St. Louis. 

HERALD — At Galena July 11, 1845, from St. Louis. 

HERMIONE — Captain D. Smith Harris, at Galena, prior to 
1852. 

HEROINE — In Galena trade 1837; sunk or burned same year. 

HIBERNIAN— At Galena, for St. Peters, 1844; same 1845, 
Captain Miller, Clerk Hopkins. 

HIGHLANDER — In upper river trade, burnt at the levee, at St. 
Louis, May i, 1849; valued at $14,000. 

HIGHLAND MARY— (First)— Sunk, 1842, at foot of Thomas 
Chute. 

HIGHLAND MARY— (Second)— Galena & St. Paul trade 
1848, Captain Joseph Atchison; arrived at St. Paul April 
19, 1850, together with the "Nominee", first arrivals of 
the season. Captain Atchison in command ; she was sold 
to Captain Joseph La Barge to run on the Missouri in 
1852; was greatly damaged by fire at St. Louis July 
27, 1853. (Captain Jos. Atchison died of cholera, which 
was very prevalent on the river in 1 850, and his boat 
was temporarily withdrawn from service.) 

HINDOO— Two trips to St. Paul, from St. Louis, in 1853. 

HUDSON — (First) — Upper River trade about 1830, at which 
time she was at Fort Snelling; sunk one mile below 
Guttenburg Landing, Iowa. 

HUDSON — (Second) — Stern-wheel; 176 tons; still running, 
1868. 

HUMBOLDT— Eleven trips to St. Paul 1853; in St. Paul trade 
1854. 

HUNTRESS— In Galena trade 1846. 

HUNTSVILLE— At Galena May 6 and May 17, 1846, from 
St. Louis; Clerk Hopkins. 

IDA MAY— St. Paul 1859. 

ILLINOIS— Captain McAllister, in Galena trade 1841. 

IMPERIAL — Large side-wheel; burned at the levee at St. Louis 
in 1 86 1 by rebel emissary, as is supposed. 

INDIANA — Fifth steamboat at Fort Snelling prior to 1827: 
Captain Fay, at Galena, 1828. 



APPENDIX A 275 



INDIAN QUEEN— Captain Saltmarsh, at Galena 1840. 

lOLA — Made five trips to St. Paul 1853; in St. Paul trade 1854, 
1855. 

ZONE — In Galena trade 1840; made pleasure trip Galena to St. 
Peters, 1840; Captain LeRoy Dodge, in Galena trade 
1842, also 1845. (Captain James Ward, afterward one 
of the most successful steamboatmen from St. Louis, 
was carpenter on this boat.) 

IOWA — Captain Legrand Morehouse, Clerk Hopkins, in Galena 
trade 1842; same captain, in Galena and St. Peters 
trade 1844, 1845. She was a side-wheel steamboat of 
249 tons burden, and cost her captain $22,000 to build. 
Snagged and sunk at Iowa Island Sept. 10, 1845, in her 
third year; total loss. 

IRENE— At Galena, for St. Peters, June, 1837. 

IRON CITY— At Galena Nov. 7, 1844, from Pittsburg; at Ga- 
lena Oct. 24, 1845; last boat out of Galena Nov. 28, 
1845, at which date Fevre River closed; at Galena April 
II, 1846, from St. Louis, Captain J. C. Ainsworth; same 
trade and same captain 1847, 1848; crushed and sunk 
by ice at St. Louis, Dec. 31, 1849, killing the cook and 
steward. 

ISAAC SHELBY— At St. Paul Nov. 14, 1857; in Minnesota 
River trade 1858, 1859. 

ITASCA — Side-wheel; new 1857; sister boat to "Key City"; 230 
feet long, 35 feet beam; 560 tons; cylinders 22-inch, seven 
feet stroke; wheels 28 feet diameter, 10 feet buckets; Cap- 
tain David Whitten, Clerks Chas. Horton and W. S. 
Lewis, 1857; Prairie du Chien and St. Paul 1857, 1858, 
1859, Captain Whitten; St. Louis & St. Paul, Captain 
Whitten, i860; Dunleith & St. Paul 1861, 1862, Captain 
J. Y. Hurd; burned at La Crosse Nov. 25, 1878. 

J. BISSEL — Captain Bisscl, from Pittsburg, 1857; in Minnesota 
River trade 1857, 1858. 

J. B. GORDON— Minnesota River boat 1855- 

J. M. MASON — Stern-wheel; sunk 1852, above Duck Creek 
Chain, Rock Island Rapids; hit rock and stove. 

JACOB POE— St. Paul 1857. 

JACOB TRABER— Large stern-wheel; had double wheels, oper- 



276 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

ated by independent engines; very slow; at St. Paul 1856, 

1857, 1858. 
JAMES LYON— Stern-wheel; built at Belle Vernon, Pa., 1853; 

190 tons; at St. Paul, from St. Louis, 1855, 1856; 1857 

— Captain Blake; 1858; went into Missouri River trade, 

and was snagged and sunk at Miami Bend, Missouri 

River, 1858; total loss. 
JASPER — Made seven trips Galena to St, Peters, Minn., 1843. 
JAMES RAYMOND— Stern-wheel; built at Cincinnati, Ohio, 

1853; 294 tons; show boat; at St. Paul 1858; William 

Fisher piloted her for one season. 
JEANETTE ROBERTS— Small stern-wheel; Captain Louis 

Robert 1857, 1858, in Minnesota River trade; Captain 

F. Aymond 1859, same trade; same trade i860, 1861, 

1862; 146 tons. 
JENNIE WHIPPLE— Small stern-wheel boat, built for Chip- 
pewa River trade; at St. Paul 1857. 
JENNY LI ND— Stern-wheel; built at Zanesville, Ohio, 1852; 

107 tons; one trip to St. Paul 1853; at St. Paul 1859. 
JO DAVIESS— Captain D. Smith Harris, in Galena and St. 

Peters trade prior to 1850. 
JOHN HARDIN— Built at Pittsburg 1845, for St. Louis, Ga- 
lena and upper river trade. 
JOHN P. LUCE— At St. Paul 1856. 
JOHN RUMSEY— Stern-wheel ; Captain Nathaniel Harris, 

Chippewa River boat 1859. 
JOSEPHINE— (First)—Ninth steamboat to reach Fort Snell- 

ing; arrived there 1827; at Galena 1828, Capt. J. Clark; 

in Galena & St. Louis trade 1829, Captain J. Clark. 
JOSEPHINE— (Second)— Stern-wheel; St. Paul trade 1856, 

1857, 1858. 
JULIA — (First) — Side-wheel; snagged in Bellefontaine Bend, 

Missouri River, about 1849. 
JULIA — (Second) — In Upper River trade 1862. 
JULIA DEAN— Small stern-wheel, at St. Paul 1855, 1856. 
KATE CASSELI^Stern-wheel; built at California, Pa., 1854; 

167 tons; at St, Paul 1855; wintered above the lake; 

1856 — Captain Sam, Harlow, Clerk Chas. Hargus; Geo. 
B. Merrick and Sam. Fifield made their first appearance 



APPENDIX A 277 

on the river as pantry boys on this boat this season ; 
Russell Ruley mate, Nat. Blaisdell, engineer ; at St. Paul 

1859. 

KATE FRENCH— Captain French, at St. Paul 1857, from St. 
Louis. 

KENTUCKY— Side-wheel ; Captain W. H. Atchison, at Galena 
April 3, 1847, from St. Louis; in Sept. same year, Cap- 
tain Montgomery, running from Galena to the Rapids, 
and connecting there with the "Anthony Wayne" and 
"Lucy Bertram" for St. Louis, not being able to run the 
rapids on account of low water. 

KENTUCKY NO. 2— Side-wheel ; built at Evansville, Ind., 
1851; 149 tons; at St. Paul 1855; owned by Captain 
Rissue, of Prescott; at St. Paul 1857; sunk on bar at foot 
of Puitt's Island, one mile below Prescott, 1858. 

KEOKUK— Side-wheel ; St. Paul trade 1858, 1859; Captain E. 
V. Holcomb, in Minnesota Packet Company, La Crosse 
& St. Paul, i860, 1 861; Davidson's Line, La Crosse & 
St. Paul, 1861; first boat at Winona, April 2, 1862, 
Captain J. R. Hatcher; 300 tons. 

KEY CITY— Side-wheel ; new 1857; built for the Minnesota 
Packet Co. ; sister boat to "Itasca" ; length 230 feet, beam 
35 feet, 560 tons burden; very fast; Captain Jones Wor- 
den, Clerk George S. Pierce, 1857, Galena, Dunleith & 
St. Paul run; same 1858, 1859; same captain, in St. 
Louis & St. Paul run, i860, 1861 ; same captain, in Dun- 
leith & St. Paul run, 1862. "Ned" West was pilot of 
the "Key City" every season, I think, from 1857 to 
1862. He was one of the very best pilots on the upper 
river. He died at St. Paul in 1904. 

KEY STONE— Side-wheel ; built at Brownsville, Pa., 1853; 307 
tons. 

KEY WEST— At St. Paul 1857- 

KNICKERBOCKER— At Fort Snelling June 25, 1839- 

LACLEDE— (First)— Built at St. Louis in 1844, for the Keokuk 
Packet Co.; burned at St. Louis August 9, 1848. 

LACLEDE— (Second)— Stern-wheel; built at California, Pa., 
1855; 197 tons; at St. Paul 1855, 1856, 1857 — Captain 
Vorhies at St. Paul from St. Louis; St. Paul 1858. 



278 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

LA CROSSE— At St. Paul, from Pittsburg, 1857— Captain 
Brickie; again 1861. 

LADY FRANKLIN— Side-wheel ; built at Wheeling, Va., 1850; 
206 tons; at St, Paul June 19, 1851, for first time; in 
Minnesota Packet Company; at St. Paul, from St. Louis, 
May 5, 1855, with 800 passengers — Captain J. W. Ma- 
lin. Clerks Ed. W. Halliday, Orren Smith; 1856— Cap- 
tain M. E. Lucas, at St. Paul; sunk at foot of Coon 
Slough fall of 1856 — snagged. 

LADY MARSHALL— In St. Louis & Galena trade 1837. 

LADY WASHINGTON— Captain Shellcross, at Galena, loading 
for Fort Snelling, 1829. 
< LAKE CITY — Stern-wheel; built at Pittsburg 1857; Captain 
Sloan, at St. Paul 1857; in St. Paul trade 1858, 1859; 
burned by guerrillas at Carson's Landing, Mo., 1862. 

LAKE OF THE WOODS— At Galena, from St. Louis, June 
5. 1847. 

LAMARTINE— First trip to St. Paul 1850; went up to Falls 
of St. Anthony 1850; at St. Paul June 19, 1851. 

LASALLE — At Galena from St. Louis, April 19, 1845. 

LATROBE — Stern-wheel; built at Brownsville, Pa., 1853; 159 
tons; at St. Paul from St. Louis, 1855. 

LAWRENCE — Sixth steamboat to reach Fort Snelling; arrived 
there in 1826. 
.LEWIS F. LYNN— Captain S. M. Kennett, at St. Peters, from 
Galena, 1844. 

LIGHT FOOT — In company with "Time and Tide" took 
excursion from St. Louis to Fort Snelling in 1845; 
Captain M. K. Harris, first boat at Galena from St. 
Louis April 20, 1847; at Galena Sept. 25, 1846. 

LINN— At Galena, for St. Anthony Falls, May, 1846. (Pos- 
sibly intended for "Lewis F. Lynn".) 

LITTLE DOVE— Captain H. Hoskins, regular Galena & St. 
Peters packet, season 1846. 

LLOYD HANNA — Advertised for a pleasure excursion from 

Galena to St. Peters, summer of 1840. 

'' LUCIE MAY— Stern-wheel ; built at West Brownsville, Pa., 

1855; 172 tons; in St. Louis & St. Paul trade 1856, 

1857; 1858 — Captain J. B. Rhodes, same trade; 1859, 



APPENDIX A 279 



Northwestern Line, St. Louis Si St. Paul ; sunk five 
miles below Lagrange, Mo., i860. 

LUCY BERTRAM— Running from St. Louis to the foot of 
rapids, summer of 1847, in connection with "Ken- 
tucky", running above rapids, forming a low water line 
from St. Louis to Galena. 

LUELLA — Stern-wheel; built at Nashville, Tenn., 1851 ; 162 
tons; first trip to St. Paul fall of 1852 — Captain D. 
Smith Harris; seven trips to St. Paul 1853, 1854, 1855 
— Captain Sam. Harlow, Galena & St. Paul run; 1856; 
had boilers and engines of a much larger boat which 
had been sunk, and was consequently very fast; dis- 
mantled at Dunleith. 

LYNX — At Galena from St. Louis, 1844, Captain W. H. Hoop- 
er; Captain John Atchison, Galena & St. Peters trade 
1845, Mr. Barger, clerk; Captain Atchison, in Galena 
& St. Peters trade 1846, 1847; sunk at head of Atlas 
Island 1849; first through lake 1846. 

MAID OF IOWA — At Galena June 15, 1845; running to 
Fort Winnebago (now Portage, Wis.) on Wisconsin 
River, in connection with steamer "Enterprise" on Fox 
River, the two forming a line from Green Bay to Ga- 
lena; Captain Peter Hotelling master and owner. 

MALTA — Side-wheel; Captain Joseph Throckmorton, at Fort 
Snelling July 22, 1839; advertised at Galena in summer 
of 1840 for pleasure trip to St. Peters; went into Mis- 
souri River trade, where she was snagged in Malta 
Bend, August, 1841, and sank in 15 feet of water, in 
little more than a minute after striking a snag; boat and 
cargo total loss; no lives lost; Captain Throckmorton 
was in command at the time and owned nearly all or 
quite all of the boat. 

MANDAN — Side-wheel; fourth boat to arrive at Fort Snelling 
prior to 1827; snagged at mouth of Gasconade River, 
on the Missouri, sometime in the forties; Captain Phil 
Hanna, master at the time. 

MANSFIELD— Stern-wheel ; built at Belle Vernon, Pa., 1854; 
166 tons; St. Paul 1856, 1857 — Captain Owens; Clerk 
Bryant. 



28o THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

MARTHA NO. 2— Built at Shousetown, Pa., 1849; 180 tons; 
at St. Paul April 24, 1851, from St. Louis; 1852. 

MARY BLANE— Captain J. C. Smith, regular St. Louis and 
Galena Packet, 1848. 

MARY C— At St. Paul 1853. 

MATTIE WAYNE— Side-wheel; built at Cincinnati, Ohio, 
1852; 335 tons; at St. Paul 1856; greatly damaged by 
fire at St. Louis 1855. 

MEDORA— Owned in St. Paul by William Constans, 1857; 
Captain Ed. McLagan, in Minnesota River trade 1858. 

MENDOTA— Captain Robert A. Reilly, at St. Peters, from 
Galena, 1844; same captain, in St. Louis & Galena trade 
1845; Captain Starnes, in St. Louis & Galena trade 
1846; snagged opposite Cat Island October, 1847, but 
raised. 

MERMAID — Side-wheel; in collision with Steamer "St. Croix", 
near Quincy, April 11, 1845; larboard wheel and cook's 
galley knocked off. 

MESSENGER — Large stern-wheel; built at Pittsburg, Pa., 
1855; 406 tons; very fast, in St. Paul trade in opposi- 
tion to Minnesota Packet Company, 1857, from St. 
Louis; raced with "Key City" for championship of 
Upper River and was defeated. 
■/ METROPOLITAN— Very large side-wheel; St. Louis & St. 
Paul trade 1856; Captain Thos. B. Rhodes, same trade 
1857; Northwestern Line, same captain, 1858, 1859; 
Captain J. B. Jenks i860; Captain Thos. B. Buford 
1861; sunk at St. Louis by breaking of ice jams, Dec. 
16, 1865; valued at $18,000. 
v/ MILWAUKEE — Large side-wheel; one of the crack boats of the 
Minnesota Packet Company, built at Cincinnati winter 
of 1856; 240 feet long, 33 feet beam; 550 tons burden; 
Captain Stephen Hewitt, in Prairie du Chien & St. Paul 
run 1857, 1858, 1859; Captain John Cochrane, in 
Dunleith & St. Paul run i860, 1861 ; Captain E. V. 
Holcombe, in Dunleith run 1862. 
'^ MINNESOTA— (First)— Stern-wheel; built at Elizabethtown, 
Ky., 1849; at St. Paul, from Galena, 1849 — Captain 



APPENDIX A 281 



R. A. Riley; at St. Paul June 25, 1851; 1857, 1858, 
Captain Hay, in Minnesota River trade. 

MINNESOTA BELLE— Side-wheel ; built at Belle Vernon, 
Pa., 1854; 226 tons; 1854, 1855, 1856 — Captain Hum- 
bertson, in St. Louis & St. Paul trade; 1857 — Captain 
Thos. B. Hill, same trade; 1859, in Northern Line, St. 
Louis & St. Paul, Captain Hill. 

MINNESOTA VALLEY— At St. Paul 1856. 

MISSOURI FULTON— Captain Culver, first part 1828; at 
Galena for St. Peters, Captain Clark later in 1828; 
arrived at Fort Snelling May 8, 1836, Captain Orren 
Smith; same captain, in Galena & St. Peters trade 1837. 

MOHAWK— Sunk 1859, at head of Clarkesville Island. 

MONDIANA— At Galena, from St. Louis, June 6, 1847. 

MONITOR — Small stern-wheel, 99 tons, from Pittsburg, at 
St. Paul, 1857. 

MONONA— At Galena from St. Louis March 10, 1845, Cap- 
tain Nick Wall ; sunk opposite Little Washington, Mis- 
souri River, Oct. 30, 1846; raised; in Galena & St. 
Peters trade. Captain E. H. Gleim, 1846; at Galena, 
from St. Louis, April 3, 1847, Captain Ludlow Cham- 
bers. 

MONTAUK— (First)— At Galena Oct. 18, 1847, from St. 
Louis; at Galena, from St. Louis 1848, Captain John 
Lee; regular packet. 
^ MONTAUK— (Second)— Stern-wheel; built at California, Pa., 
1853; 237 tons; at St. Paul from St. Louis, 1855; 1850 
— Captain Parker, from St. Louis; 1857 — Captain 
Burke, Clerks Mullen and Ditto, from St. Louis. 
-- MONTELLO— Small stern-wheel from Fox River, Wis., in 
Minnesota River trade 1855; built over hull of barge 
— no boiler deck. 

MOSES McLELLAN— Side-wheel ; built at Cincinnati, Ohio, 
1855; 400 tons; Captain Martin, in Davidson Line, La 
Crosse & St. Paul, 1862. 

MOUNT DEMING— At St. Paul 1857- 

MUNGO PARK— At Galena from St. Louis April 16, 1845; 
regular packet. 

MUSCODA— Captain J. H. Lusk, in Galena trade 1841. 



282 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

NAVIGATOR— Large stern-wheel; Captain A. T. Champlin, 
in St. Louis & St. Paul trade 1854; same trade 1855; 
300 tons; built at Pittsburg, by William Dean. 

NEIVILLE — Second steamboat to arrive at Fort Snelling prior 
to 1827. 
V NELLIE KENT— Small stern-wheel, built at Osceola, Wis., by 
Captain Kent, to run between Prescott and St. Croix 
Falls. 

NEW HAVEN— At Galena, for St. Louis, Nov. 5, 1844; regu- 
lar St. Louis, Galena, Dubuque & Potosi Packet, 1845, 
Captain Geo. L. King; at Galena June 12, 1846. 
"^ NEW ST. PAUL— Side-wheel ; built at New Albany, Ind., 1852 ; 
225 tons; Captain James Bissell; went into Missouri 
River trade, and was snagged and sunk at St. Albert's 
Island, Aug. 19, 1857; boat and cargo total loss; boat 
cost $25,000. 

NEW YORK— At St. Paul 1856. 

NIMROD — At Galena from St. Louis, June 14, 1845; Ameri- 
can Fur Company boat; went into Missouri River trade, 
v/ NOMINEE— Side-wheel ; built at Shousetown, Pa., 1848; 213 
tons; Captain D. Smith Harris, arrived at St. Paul, 
April 19, 1850, in company with "Highland Mary", 
first boats through lake; in Minnesota Packet Co.; 
Captain Orren Smith, at St. Paul April 16, 1852, 8 
p. M., first boat through lake; Captain Russell Blakeley, 
29 trips Galena to St. Paul, 1853; Captain Russell 
Blakeley, first boat at St. Paul April 8, 1854; sunk 
below Britt's Landing, 1854; Mr. Maitland was clerk 
in 1852. 
X' NORTHERNER— Side-wheel; built at Cincinnati, Ohio, 1853; 
400 tons; very fast; contested with "Key City" for 
championship of Upper River, but was beaten ; in North- 
ern Line, St. Louis & St. Paul; Captain Pliny A. Al- 
ford, commanded her 1858, 1859, i860, 1861, 1862; 
burned at St. Louis prior to 1871. 
v/ NORTHERN BELLE— Side-wheel ; 498 tons; built at Cincin- 
nati, under supervision of Captain Preston Lodwick in 
1856, for Minnesota Packet Co.; 226 feet long, 29 feet 
beam, light draft and very handsomely finished, outside 



APPENDIX A 283 



and in; Galena & St. Paul Line 1856, Captain Preston 
Lodwick; Captain J. Y. Hurd, Dunleith Line, 1858; 
same captain, in La Crosse Line 1859; same captain, 
in Dunleith Line, i860; in La Crosse Line, Captain 
W. H. Laughton, 1861 ; took five companies of the 
First Minnesota Infantry Volunteers from St. Paul 
to La Crosse, June 22, 1861 ; Captain W. H. Laughton, 
in Davidson's La Crosse Line, 1862. 

NORTHERN LIGHT— Large side-wheel; built at Cincinnati 
for Minnesota Packet Co., vv'inter of 1856; length 240 
feet, beam 40 feet, hold 5 feet; 740 tons; cylinders 22 
inches, seven feet stroke; 8 boilers, 46 inches diameter, 
17 feet long; wheels 31 feet diameter, 9 feet buckets, 
30 inches dip; ciame out in the. spring of 1857 with 
Captain Preston Lodwick, Clerks J. D. DuBois and K. 
C. Cooley; Engineers James Kinestone and Geo. Rade- 
baugh; Mate James Morrison; had oil paintings of St. 
Anthony Falls, Dayton Bluffs and Maiden Rock in 
panels in the cabin ; paddle boxes had paintings of aurora 
borealis; Captain P. Lodwick, in Galena, Dunleith & 
St. Paul Line 1857, 1858, 1859; same captain, in St. 
Louis & St. Paul Line i860; Captain John B. Davis, 
St. Louis Line 1861; Captain Gabbert, in Dunleith 
Line 1862; sunk in first bend below head of Coon 
Slough, by Jackson Harris, pilot, who swung stern of 
boat into solid shore ice in making fast turn of the bend, 
tearing out the stern of the boat and sinking her in 30 
feet of water in a few minutes. 

NORTH STAR— Built above the Falls of St. Anthony by Cap- 
tain John Rawlins in 1855; running from St. Anthony 
to Sauk Rapids until 1857. 

NUGGET— Stern-wheel ; snagged April 22, 1866, abreast Da- 
cota City, Nebr., on Missouri River; boat and cargo 
total loss; boat valued at $20,000. 

OAKLAND — Stern-wheel; built at California, Pa., 1853; 142 
tons; Captain C. S. Morrison, at St. Paul, 1855; at St. 
Paul from St. Louis 1856, 1857, 1858. 

OCEAN WAVE— Side- wheel; built at Elizabeth, Ky., 1854; 
235 tons; very short boat and very hard to steer; cost 



284 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

$17,000; in Minnesota Packet Company, Captain E. H. 
Gleim 1856; 1857, Captain Andrews In spring, and 
Captain James In fall. In Galena & St. Paul Line; 1858, 
1859 — Captain Scott, in Prairie du Chlen Line; i860, 
Captain N. F. Webb, in Dunleith Line; 1861, Captain 
Webb, In La Crosse Line. 

ODD FELLOW— Cline, master, at Galena 1848. 

OHIO — Captain Mark Atchison, in Galena trade 1842; at Ga- 
lena for St. Louis, Nov. 5, 1844. 

OLIVE BRANCH— Captain Strother, at Galena, for St. Louis, 
April 9, 1836. 

OMEGA — At Galena for St. Peters, Minnesota, spring of 1840, 
Captain Joseph Sire, Pilot Joseph La Barge; owned 
by American Fur Co. ; went into the Missouri River 
trade. 
^ ORB — Stern-wheel; built at Wheeling, Va., 1854; 226 tons; at 
St. Paul from St. Louis, 1857, Captain Spencer. 

OSCEOLA— Small stern-wheel boat, built for St. Croix River 
trade; at St. Paul 1855. 

OSPREY— In St. Louis & Galena trade 1842, Captain N. W. 
Parker; same trade 1845, 1846. 

OSWEGO— At St. Paul Nov. 13, 1851. 

OTTER — Built and owned by Harris Brothers; D. Smith Har- 
ris, captain; R. Scribe Harris, engineer; in Galena and 
St. Peters trade 184 1, 1842; 7 trips to St. Peters In 
1843; Captain Scribe Harris, in same trade 1844, 1845; 
arrived at Galena from St. Peters, April 8, 1845, hav- 
ing passed through lake on up trip; in same trade 1846, 
1847; Harris Bros, sold her In 1848; her engines were 
taken out and placed In the "Tiger" prior to 1852. 

PALMYRA— Captain Cole, arrived at Fort Snelling June i, 
1836, with a pleasure excursion consisting of some 30 
ladies and gentlemen from Galena; in Galena & St. 
Peters trade 1837, Captain Middleton; arrived at Fort 
Snelling July 14, 1838, bringing the official notice of 
the Sioux treaty, opening of St. Croix Valley to set- 
tlers; also brought machinery for sawmill to be built 
on St. Croix, and Mr. Calvin Tuttle, millwright, with 
a number of workers to erect the mill. 



APPENDIX A 285 



PANOLA— At St. Paul 1858. 

PARTH EN I A— Stern-wheel; built at California, Pa., 1854; 154 

tons; in St. Paul trade 1856, 1857. 
PAVILION — Captain Lafferty, at Galena for St. Peters, June 

I, 1837. 

PEARL — At Galena for St. Louis, March 16, 1845; same Octo- 
ber, 1847, Montgomery, master; regular Galena & St. 
Peters trade 1848; also for St. Croix Falls. 

PEMBINA — Side-wheel; in Northwestern Line and Northern 
Line; Captain Thos. H. Griffith, St. Louis & St. Paul 
1857, 1858, 1859; Captain John B. Hill, same trade 
i860, 1861. 

PENNSYLVANIA— Captain Stone, at St. Paul June i, 1839- 

PIKE — At Galena, on her way up the river, Sept. 3, 1839; ar- 
rived at Fort Snelling with troops Sept. 9, 1839; ar- 
rived again Sept. 17, 1839; in same trade 1840. 

PILOT— At Galena from St. Louis, Sept. 6, 1846. 

PIZARRO— At Galena, new 1838; built by Captain R. Scribe 
Harris; 133 feet long, 20 feet beam, 144 tons burden; 
in Galena trade 1840. 

PLANET— At Galena from St. Louis May 21, 1847. 

PLOW BOY — Side-wheel; 275 tons; snagged above Providence, 
Mo., on Missouri River, 1853. 

POMEROY— Minnesota River boat, Captain Bell 1861. 

POTOSI— Collapsed flue at Quincy, 111., October 4, 1844, killing 
two passengers; at Galena, 111., from St. Louis, April 

II, 1846. 

PRAIRIE BIRD— Captain Nick Wall, in Galena, St. Louis & 
St. Peters trade 1846; at Galena April 11, 1846; at 
Galena, April 3, 1847, Captain Nick Wall, same trade; 
213 tons burden; cost $17,000; sunk above Keithsburg, 
Iowa, 1852. 

PRAIRIE ROSE— Stern-wheel ; built at Brownsville, Pa., 1854; 
248 tons; in St. Louis and St. Paul trade, 1855, Captain 
Maratta. 

PRAIRIE STATE— (First)— One of the early boats on the 
Upper River; exploded boilers at Pekin, 111., April 25, 
1852, killing 20 of the deck passengers and crew. 



286 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

PRAIRIE STATE— (Second)— Stern-wheel; 281 tons; 59 horse 

power; Captain Truett, St. Louis & St. Paul Packet, 

1855. 
PRE-EMPTION— Built by Harris Bros., of Galena; Captain 

D. Smith Harris, some time prior to 1852. 
PROGRESS— Stern-wheel ; built at Shousetown, Pa., 1854; 217 

tons; Captain Goodell, at St. Paul, loading for St. 

Louis, 1857. 
QUINCY— In Galena trade 1840. 
RARITAN— Captain Rogers, at Galena 1846. 
REBUS— St. Paul trade 1854. 
RED ROVER — Captain Throckmorton, in Galena trade 1828, 

1829, 1830. 
RED WING— (First)— Side-wheel; 24 feet beam; new 1846; 

Captain Berger, in St. Louis & St. Peters regular trade, 

1846; at Galena April, 1846; Clerk Green; Captain 

Berger, St. Louis & St. Peters, 1847, 1848. 
RED WING— (Second)— Side-wheel; at St. Paul 1855; Cap- 
tain Woodburn, at St. Paul 1857; Captain Ward, latter 

part 1857; Captain Ward, at St. Paul 1858. 
RED WING— (Third)— In Northwestern Line, 1879-1880; 

side-wheel, 670 tons burden. 
REGULATOR— Stern-wheel ; built at Shousetown, Pa., 185 1; 

156 tons; in St. Louis & St. Paul trade 1855. 
RELIEF — Captain D. Smith Harris, prior to 1852. 
RESCUE — Stern-wheel; built at Shousetown, Pa., 1853; 169 

tons; built for towboat; very fast; Captain Irvine, at 

St. Paul from Pittsburg, 1857. 
RESERVE— At St. Paul 1857. 
RESOLUTE — Stern-wheel (towboat) ; very powerful engines; 

316 tons; owned by Capt. R. C. Gray, of Pittsburg 

Tow-boat Line. 
REVEILLE — Small stern-wheel; wintered above the lake 1855; 

St. Paul trade 1855, 1856, 1857. 
REVEILLE — At Galena, from St. Louis, April 18, 1846; regular 

packet in that trade; (do not know whether it is the 

same as above). 
REVENUE — Captain Turner, in Galena trade 1847; burned on 

Illinois River, May 24, 1847. 
REVENUE CUTTER— Captain McMahan and Oliver Harris, 



APPENDIX A 287 



owners, McMahan, master, at Galena, from St. Louis, 
May 9, 1847; in Galena & St. Peters trade; bought to 
take place of steamer "Cora" sold to go into Missouri 
River trade. 

ROBERT FULTON— At St. Paul July 3, 1851. 

ROCHESTER— Built at Belle Vernon, Pa., 1855; 199 tons; at 
St. Paul 1856. 

ROCKET— At St. Paul from St. Louis, 1857. 

ROCK RIVER — Small boat, owned and commanded by Augustin 
Havaszthy, Count de Castro, an Hungarian exile; in 
Galena and upper river trade 1841 ; made trips between 
Galena & St. Peters once in two weeks during season of 
1842; in same trade 1843, 1844; laid up for winter at 
Wacouta, head of lake, in fall of 1844, her cook and 
several others of the crew walking on the ice to La 
Crosse; the captain and two or three others remained 
on board all winter, and in the spring, as soon as the ice 
was out of the lake, went south with the boat, which 
ran on some lower river tributary, and the Count was 
lost sight of. 

V ROLLA — At Galena for St. Peters, June 18, 1837; had on board 

Major Taliaferro, U. S. A., with a party of Indians; 
arrived at Fort Snelling Nov. 10, 1837, bringing delega- 
tions of chiefs who had been to Washington to make a 
treaty whereby the St. Croix Valley was opened to 
settlers; collapsed a flue and burned near Rock Island, 
111., November, 1837, killing one fireman and severely 
scalding the engineer on watch. 
ROSALIE— (First)— In Galena and St. Louis trade 1839. 

V ROSALIE — (Second) — Stern-wheel; built at Brownsville, Pa., 

1854; 158 tons; Captain Rounds, from Pittsburg, with 
stoves and hardware, sunk below St. Paul 1857; '^vas 
raised and continued in St. Paul trade, 1858, 1859. 

ROYAL ARCH— Side-wheel; built at West Elizabeth, Pa., 1852; 
213 tons; Captain E. H, Gleim, in Minnesota Packet 
Co., 1854; 1855; 1856, same line; sunk opposite Nine 
Mile Island 1858. 

RUFUS PUTNAM— Third steamboat to reach Fort Snelling; 
arrived there in 1825. 



288 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

RUMSEY — Small Minnesota River boat; sunk on mud flat 
opposite levee at St. Paul. 

SAM GATY— Large side-wheel; built at St. Louis, Mo., 1853; 
367 tons, 288 horse-power engines; Captain Vickers, at 
St. Paul 1855; went into Missouri River trade; struck 
a bluff bank at point opposite Arrow Rock, Mo., knocked 
her boilers down and set fire to boat, burned and sank, 
June 27, 1867. She had been a money-maker for many 
years, both on the Mississippi and on the Missouri. 

SAM KIRKMAN— At St. Paul 1858. 

SAM. YOUNG— Built at Shousetown, Pa., 1855; 155 tons; at 
St. Paul 1856; Captain Reno, from Pittsburg, at St. 
Paul 1857- 

SANGAMON— Stern-wheel; built at New Albany, Ind., 1853; 
86 tons; Captain R. M. Spencer, at St. Paul 1854. 

SARACEN— New 1856; built at New Albany, Ind., Captain 
H. B. Stran, Clerk Casey, at St. Paul 1857- 

SARAH ANN — Captain Lafferty, in Galena trade 1841; sunk, 
1 84 1, at head of Island 500; raised; regular St. Louis 
& Galena packet. 

SAXON— At St. Paul 1859. 

SCIENCE — Running between St. Louis and Fort Winnebago, on 
the Wisconsin (now Portage) ; made three trips to the 
Fort in 1837 with troops and government supplies. 

SCIOTA — Seventeenth steamboat to arrive at Fort Snelling prior 
to 1827. 

SENATOR— At Galena, from St. Louis, April 20, 1847, first; 
Captain E. M. McCoy; in Galena and upper river trade 
1847; bought by Harris Brothers 1848; Captain D. 
Smith Harris, in Galena & St. Peters trade 1848; 
arrived at Galena, from St. Peters April 13, reporting 
heavy ice in Lake Pepin, but was able to get through; 
Captain Orren Smith, 1849, 1850, in Galena & St. 
Paul trade. She was the second boat owned by the 
Minnesota Packet Company, the "Dr. Franklin" being 
the first. 

SHENANDOAH— Made five trips to St. Paul, from St. Louis, 
in 1853; same trade 1855; was in great ice gorge at 
St. Louis, February, 1856. 



APPENDIX A 289 



SILVER WAVE— Stern-wheel ; built at Glasgow, Ohio, 1855; 
245 tons; in upper river trade 1856. 

SKIPPER— At St. Paul 1857. 

SMELTER — Captain D. Smith Harris, Engineer Scribe Harris, 
Galena & St. Peters trade 1837; was one of the first 
boats on the upper river to be built with a cabin answer- 
ing to the "boiler deck" of modern steamboats. 

SNOW DROP— At St. Paul 1859- 

STATESMAN— Built at Brownsville, Pa., 1851; 250 tons; at 
St. Paul 1855. 

STELLA WHIPPLE— Stern-wheel; Captain Haycock, Min- 
nesota River trade, 1861; built for the Chippewa River. 

ST. ANTHONY — Side-wheel; 157 feet long, 24 feet beam, 5 
feet hold; 30 staterooms; small boat, but highly finish- 
ed and furnished for that time; hull built by S. Speer, 
of Belle Vernon, Pa., engines by Stackhouse & Nelson, 
of Pittsburg, modeled by Mr, King; Captain A. G. 
Montford, in Galena & St. Peters trade 1846, regularly. 

ST. CROIX— Side-wheel; built by Hiram Bersie, William 
Cupps, James Ryan and James Ward ; Captain Hiram 
Bersie, Mate James Ward, 1844, in St. Louis, Galena 
& St. Peters trade; in collision with "Mermaid", near 
Quincy, April 11, 1845, losing her barge; damaged by 
fire May 13, 1845; in upper river trade 1845, 1846, 
1847, Captain Bersie, master. 

ST. LOUIS — Stern-wheel; built at Brownsville, Pa., 1855; 192 
tons; at St. Paul 1856, 1859. 

ST. LOUIS OAK— Side-wheel; Captain Coones, St. Louis, Ga- 
lena & Dubuque trade 1845; snagged and lost at head 
of Howard's Bend, Missouri River, 1847, Captain Doz- 
ier in command. 

ST. PAUL— Side-wheel; built at Wheeling, Va., 1852, for Har- 
ris Bros., Galena, 111. ; 1852, Captain M. K. Harris, 
in Galena & St. Paul trade; was very slow, and drew 
too much water for upper river trade; 1854, Captain 
Bissell, at St. Paul for St. Louis; at St. Paul 1855. 

ST. PETERS— (First)— Captain Joseph Throckmorton, at St. 
Peters and Fort Snelling July 2, 1836; brought as one 



290 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

of her passengers Nicollet, who came to explore the 
Northwest Territory. 

ST. PETERS — (Second) — Built and owned by Captain James 
Ward (formerly mate of the "St. Croix"), who com- 
manded her; burned at St. Louis May 17, 1849; valued 
at $2,000. 
•'^ SUCKER STATE— Side-wheel; in Northern Line; Captain 
Thos. B. Rhodes, in St. Louis & St. Paul Line, 1859, 
i860, 1861; Captain James Ward, in same line, 1862; 
was burned at Alton Slough, together with three or four 
other boats, while lying in winter quarters. 

SUTLER — Captain D. Smith Harris, prior to 1850. 

TEMPEST— (First)— Regular St. Louis, Galena, Dubuque & 
Potosi packet; at Galena April 11, 1846, Captain John 
Smith. 
V TEMPEST — (Second) — Side-wheel; went into Missouri River 
trade and was snagged and lost about 1865, at Upper 
Bonhomme Island. 

THOS. SCOTT— Large side-wheel; at St. Paul, from St. Louis, 
1856. 

TIGER — Had engines of old "Otter"; Captain Maxwell, in 
St. Paul trade 1850; same captain, in Minnesota River 
trade 1851, 1852; 104 tons, 52 horse power; very slow. 
" TIGRESS — Large stern-wheel; 356 tons; Ohio River towboat; 
powerful engines and very fast; at St. Paul 1858; sunk 
by Confederate batteries at Vicksburg 1863. 
^ TIME— At Galena May 15, 1845; regular St. Louis & Galena 
packet; at Galena April 11, 1846, from St. Louis, Cap- 
tain Wm. H. Hooker, in regular trade; snagged and 
sunk one-half mile below Pontoosuc, la., August, 1846. 

TIME AND TIDE— (First)— Captain D. Smith Harris, Keel- 
er Harris, engineer, brought excursion party to Fort 
Snelling, in company with steamer "Light Foot", in 
1845; at Galena April 13, 1847, E. W. Gould, master, 
in regular St. Louis, Galena & St. Peters trade. 

TIME AND TIDE— (Second)— Stern-wheel; built at Freedom, 
Pa., 1853; 131 tons; Captain Louis Robert, at St. Paul 
1855, 1856; same captain, in Minnesota River trade 
1857, 1858; Captain Nelson Robert, same trade 1859. 



APPENDIX A 29] 



■ TISHOMINGO— Side-wheel; built at New Albany, Ind., 1852; 

188 tons; very fast boat; bought by one Johnson, of 
Winona, Minn., from lower river parties, to run in op- 
position to Minesota Packet Company; was in St. Paul 
trade 1856, but lost money and was sold for debt at 
Galena in winter of 1856; bought for $25,000 by Cap- 
tain Sargent; reported as having left St. Louis April 14, 

1857, Jenks, master, for St. Paul with 465 cabin pas- 
sengers and 93 deck passengers, besides a full cargo of 
freight, worth to the boat about $14,000. 

TUNIS— At St. Paul 1857. 

TWIN CITY— Side-wheel; built at California, Pa., 1853; 170 
tons; in St. Paul trade 1855; burned at St. Louis Dec. 

7, 1855. 

UNCLE TOBY— Captain Geo. B. Cole, at St. Peters, from 
St. Louis, 1845 ; at Galena April 9, 1846, from St. Louis 
Captain Geo. B. Cole; regular St. Louis, Galena & 
Dubuque packet for season; 1847, Captain Henry R. 
Day, regular St. Louis & St. Peters packet ; in same trade 
1851 ; arrived at Point Douglass, Minn., Nov. 20, 1851, 
and there unloaded and had freight hauled by team to 
St. Paul on account of floating ice; put back from Point 
Douglass to St. Louis. 

U. S. MAIL— At St. Paul 1855. 

VALLEY FORGE — Advertised a pleasure trip from Galena to 
St. Peters, 1840. 

VERSAILLES— Arrived at Fort Snelling May 12, 1832, from 
Galena. 

VIENNA — Stern-wheel; built at Monongahela, Pa., 1853; 170 
tons; in St. Louis & St. Paul trade 1855, 1856. 

VIOLET— At St. Paul 1856. 
'-^VIRGINIA — At St. Louis April, 1823, with government stores 
for Fort Snelling, John Shellcross, master; arrived at 
Fort May 10, 1823; built at Pittsburg; 118 feet long, 
22 feet beam, 160 tons. 

■ VIXEN — Stern-wheel; built at St. Paul; from Pittsburg, 1857, 

1858, 1859. 

VOLANT — Thirteenth steamboat to arrive at Fort Snelling, 
prior to 1827. 



292 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

v W. G. WOODSIDE— Built at Moundsville, Va., 1855; 197 
tons; at St. Paul 1856. 

W. H. DENNY— Side-wheel; built at California, Pa., 1855; 
276 tons; Captain Lyons, at St. Paul from St. Louis, 
1857; sunk opposite head of Fabius Island 1857. 

WM. L. EWING— Large side-wheel ; Captain Smith, St. Louis 
& St. Paul, 1857; in Northwestern Line, Captain Green, 
1858; same 1859; Northern Line i860, 1861, Captain 
J. H. Rhodes, St. Louis & St. Paul. 

W. S. NELSON— Captain Jameson, at St. Paul 1857; at St. 
Paul 1859- 
^ WAR EAGLE— (First)— Built by Harris Brothers for Galena 
& St. Peters trade in 1845; 156 tons burden; command- 
ed by Captain D. Smith Harris, Scribe Harris, engineer; 
in Galena & St. Peters trade 1845, 1846, 1847; St. 
Louis & St. Peters 1848; in 1848 Harris Bros, sold her 
and bought the "Senator", in order to get a faster boat, 
v/ WAR EAGLE — (Second) — Built at Cincinnati, winter of 1853- 
4; side-wheel; 219 feet long, 29 feet beam, 296 tons; 
had 46 staterooms; 3 boilers, 14 feet long; in Minne- 
sota Packet Company, Captain D. Smith Harris, Galena 
& St. Paul, 1854, 1855, 1856; made the run from 
Galena to St. Paul, 1855, in 44 hours, handling all way 
freight; 1857, Captain Kingman, Clerks Coffin and Ball, 
in Dunleith & St. Paul Line; Captain W. H. Gabbert, 
1858, same line; La Crosse Line 1859; Captain J. B. 
Davis, i860, in La Crosse Line; spring of 186 1 started 
out from La Crosse with following roster of officers: 
Captain A. Mitchell, Clerk Sam Cook, Second Clerk 
E. A. Johnson, Pilots Jackson Harris, and William 
Fisher; Engineers Troxell and Wright; Steward Frank 
Norn's; later in the season Captain Mitchell was suc- 
ceeded by Captain Chas. L. Stephenson and ran in Dun- 
leith Line; June 22, 1861, left St. Paul with five com- 
panies of the First Minnesota Infantry Volunteers, the 
"Northern Belle" having the other five companies, which 
were landed at La Crosse and transferred to the railroad 
for transportation to Washington; 1862, in Dunleith 
Line, Captain N. F. Webb; in St. Paul trade 1862, 



APPENDIX A 293 



1863; Thomas Gushing, master in latter year; burnt, 
La Crosse (year not learned). 
/ WARRIOR — Built in 1832 by Captain Joseph Throckmorton, 
for upper river trade; took part in the battle of Bad 
Axe, where the Indians under Blackhawk were defeated 
and dispersed, Captain Throckmorton in command of 
boat, E. H. Gleim, clerk, William White, pilot; ar- 
rived at Fort Snelling on first trip of the season, June 
24, 1835, having among her passengers General Geo. 
W. Jones, U. S. A., Captain Day and Lieut. Beech, U. 
S. A., and Catlin, the artist, on his way to study the 
Indians of the northwest; at Fort again July 16, 1835; 
at Galena advertised for Pittsburg, Nov. 7, 1835; in 
Galena & St. Peters trade 1836. 

WAVE — Small stern-wheel ; Captain Maxwell, in Minnesota 
River trade, 1857, 1858. At Galena, from St. Louis, 
1845. (Possibly another boat.) 

WENONA— Stern-wheel ; built at Belle Vernon, Pa., 1855; 171 
tons; Captain L. Brown, in Minnesota River trade; 
also in St. Croix River trade for a time; at St. Paul 
1859. 

WEST NEWTON— Captain D. Smith Harris, 1852, in Galena 
& St. Paul trade; first boat at St. Paul 1853, Captain 
Harris; made 27 trips between Galena and St. Paul 
1853 ; sunk at foot of West Newton Chute, below Alma, 
in Sept., 1853. 

WHITE BLUFF— At St. Paul 1856. 

WHITE CLOUD— (First)— Burnt at St. Louis May 17, 1849. 

WHITE CLOUD— (Second)— Side-wheel; very fast; had dou- 
ble rudders; Captain Alford, from St. Louis at St. 
Paul, 1857; sunk at St. Louis, Feb. 13, 1867, by ice; 
total loss. 
/ WINNEBAGO— Built 1830, by Captain George W. Atchison 
and Captain Joseph Throckmorton; in Galena & St. 
Louis trade, Jos. Throckmorton, master; also visited 
Fort Snelling with government stores. 

WINONA— Side-wheel ; Captain J. R. Hatcher, Davidson Line, 
La Crosse & St. Paul, 1861. 



294 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

\r WIOTA— New 1845; built and owned by Captain R. A. Reilly, 
Corwith Bros., and Wm. Hempstead, of Galena; side- 
wheel, 180 feet long, 24 feet beam, 5 feet hold; double 
engines, 18 inch diameter, 7 feet stroke, 3 boilers, wheels 
22 feet diameter, 10 feet buckets; gangway to boiler 
deck in front, instead of on the side as had been cus- 
tomary; in St. Louis & Galena trade, R. A. Reilly, mas- 
ter. 
\/ WISCONSIN— Captain Flaherty, at Galena, for St. Louis, 
April 9, 1836. 

WYANDOTTE— Captain Pierce, Dubuque & St. Paul Line, 
1856. 

WYOMING— In Galena & St. Louis trade 1837. 
V YANKEE — Stern-wheel, 145 feet long, 200 tons burden, at St. 
Paul Sept. 27, 1849; August I, 1850, started on trip of 
300 miles up the Minnesota River with a party of la- 
dies and gentlemen, on an exploring expedition; Captain 
M. K. Harris, Clerk G. R. Girdon, Pilot J. S. Arm- 
strong, Engineers G. W. Scott and G. L, Sargent; 
reached a point many miles further up the river than had 
heretofore been reached by steamboats; at St. Paul June 
26, 1 85 1, Captain Orren Smith. 

YORK STATE— Side-wheel ; built at Brownsville, Pa., 1852; 
247 tons; Captain GrifSths, in St. Louis & St. Paul 
trade 1855; at St. Paul 1856 — Captain James Ward, 
who also owned her. 



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Appendix C 

Table of Distances from St. Louis 







DISTANCE 


GOVERN- 


LANDING 


ESTIMATED, 


BETWEEN 


MENT SUR- 




1858 


PORTS 


VEY, 1880 


Alton, III 


25 





23 


Grafton, 111. . . 










16 


39 


Cap au Gris, Mo. 








65 


27 


66 


Hamburg, 111. . 








— 


22 


88 


ClarkesviUe, Mo. 








102 


14 


102 


Louisiana, Mo. 








114 


10 


112 


Hannibal, Mo. . 








144 


29 


141 


Quixncy, 111. . . 








164 


20 


161 


La Grange, Mo. 








176 


10 


171 


Canton, Mo. 








184 


7 


178 


Alexandria, Mo. 








204 


19 


197 


Warsaw, 111. . . 








204 




197 


Keokuk, Iowa . 








208 


5 


202 


Montrose, Iowa . 








220 


12 


214 


Nauvoo, 111. . . 








223 


3 


217 


Fort Madison, Iowa 








232 


8 


225 


Pontoosuc, 111. . 








238 


7 


232 


Dallas, 111. . . 








240 


2 


234 


Burlington, Iowa 








255 


14 


248 


Oquawaka, 111 . 








270 


13 


261 


Keithsburg, 111. . 








282 


12 


273 


New Boston, 111. 








289 


6 


279 


Port Louisa, Iowa 








294 


9 


288 


Muscatine, Iowa . 








317 


14 


302 


Buffalo, Iowa . , 











19 


321 


Rock Island, 111. . 








347 


10 


331 


Davenport, Iowa . 








348 


I 


332 


Hampton, 111. . . 










10 


342 



APPENDIX C 



297 







DISTANCE 


GOVERN- 


LANDING 


ESTIMATED, 


BETWEEN 


MENT SUR- 




1858 


PORTS 


VEY, 1880 


Le Claire, Iowa . . . 


365 


6 


348 


Port Byron, 111. . . . 


365 


— 


348 


Princeton, Iowa . . . 


371 


6 


354 


Cordova, 111 


372 


I 


355 


Camanche, Iowa . . . 


381 


9 


364 


Albany, 111 


384 


2 


366 


Clinton, Iowa .... 


390 


5 


371 


Fulton, 111 


392 


2 


373 


Lyons, Iowa 


393 


I 


374 


Sabula, 111 


412 


17 


391 


Savanna, 111 


415 


2 


393 


Bellevue, Iowa .... 


438 


21 


414 


Galena, 111 


450 


12 


426 


Dubuque, Iowa .... 


470 


12 


438 


Dunleith, 111 


471 


I 


439 


Wells' Landing, Iowa . 


485 


13 


452 


Cassville, Wis 


500 


16 


468 


Guttenberg, Iowa . . . 


510 


10 


478 


Glen Haven, Wis. . . 




I 


479 


Clayton, Iowa .... 


522 


7 


486 


Wisconsin River, Wis. . 




7 


493 


McGregor, Iowa . . 


533 


4 


497 


Prairie du Chien, Wis. . 


536 


3 


500 


Lynxville, Wis 


553 


17 


517 


Lansing, Iowa .... 


566 


12 


529 


De Soto, Wis 


577 


5 


534 


Victory, Wis 


582 


7 


541 


Bad Axe, Wis 


589 


8 


549 


Warner's Landing, Wis. 




5 


554 


Brownsville, Minn. . . 


591 


8 


562 


La Crosse, Wis. . . . 


617 


10 


572 


Dresbach, Minn. , . . 


627 


8 


580 


Trempealeau, Wis, . . 


632 


II 


591 


Winona, Minn 


645 


13 


604 


Fountain City, Wis. . . 


655 


7 


611 


Mount Vernon, Minn. 


666 


9 


620 


Minneiska, Minn. . 


669 


3 


623 


Buffalo City, Wis. . . 


676 




— 


Alma, Wis 


684 


10 


633 



298 



THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 







DISTANCE 


GOVERN- 


LANDING 


ESTIMATED, 


BETWEEN 


MENT SUR- 




1858 


PORTS 


VEY, 1880 


Wabasha, Minn. . . . 


693 


9 


642 


Reed's Landing, Minn 






696 


3 


645 


North Pepin, Wis. 






701 


4 


649 


Lake City, Minn. . 






708 


6 


655 


Florence, Minn. . 






713 
719 







Frontenac, Minn. . 












Maiden Rock, Wis. 






10 


665 


Wacouta, Minn. . 






723 






Stockholm, Wis. . 






3 


668 


Red Wing, Minn. 






726 


8 


676 


Trenton, Wis. . . 








4 
6 


680 


Diamond Bluff, Wis 






741 

756 


686 


Prescott, Wis. . . 






13 


699 


Point Douglass, Minn 






757 


I 


700 


Hastings, Minn. . 






759 


2 


702 


Nininger, Minn. . 






764 


5 


707 


Pine Bend, Minn. . 






775 






Newport, Minn. . 






782 


13 


720 


St. Paul, Minn. . 






791 


9 


729 


St. Anthony Falls, Minn, 




805 


12 


741 



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St. Anthony Falls to St. Paul 
St. Paul to Prescott 
Prescott to Head Lake Pepin 
Harbor at Lake City 
Foot Lake Pepin to Alma 
Alma to Winona 
Winona to La Crosse 
La Crosse to McGregor . 
McGregor to Dubuque . 
Dubuque to Clinton 
Clinton to Rock Island . 
Rock Island to Keithsburg 
Keithsburg to Des Moines R 
Keokuk to Quincy . 
Quincy to Clarksville 
Clarksville to Cap au Gris 
Cap au Gris to Illinois River 
Illinois River to Mouth of ]\ 
Miscellaneous, maintenance of 




c 
3 









Appendix E 

Indian Nomenclature and Legends 

The name Mississippi is an amelioration of the harsher sylla- 
bles of the Indian tongue from which it sprang. Dr. Lafayette 
H. Bunnell, late of Winona, Minnesota, a personal friend and old 
army comrade, is my authority for the names and spelling given 
below, as gleaned by him during many years' residence among 
the Chippewa of Wisconsin and the Sioux (or Dakota) of 
Minnesota. Dr. Bunnell spoke both languages fluently, and in 
addition made a scholarly study of Indian tongues for literary 
purposes. His evidence is conclusive, that so far as the northern 
tribes were concerned the Mississippi was in the Chippewa language, 
from which the name is derived: Mee-zee (great), see -bee 
(river) — Great River. The Dakota called it Wat-pah-tah'-ka 
(big river). The Sauk, Foxes, and Potawatomi, related tribes, 
all called it: Mee-chaw-see'-poo (big river). The Winnebago 
called it: Ne-scas-hut'-ta-ra (the bluf^-walled river). Thus six 
out of seven tribes peopling its banks united in terming it the 
"Great River". 

Dr. Bunnell disposes of the romantic fiction that the Indians 
called it the "Great Father of Waters", by saying that in Chip- 
pewa this would be: Miche-nu-say'-be-gong — a term that he 
never heard used in speaking of the stream; and old Wah-pa-sha, 
chief of the Dakota living at Winona, assured the Doctor that 
he had never heard an Indian use it. The Chippewa did, how- 
ever, have a superlative form of the name: Mtche-gah'-see-bee 
(great, endless river), descriptive of its (to them) illimitable 
length. 

Dr. Bunnell suggests the derivation of the name Michigan, 
as applied to the lake and state. The Chippewa term for any 
great body of water, like Lakes Michigan, Superior, or Huron, is: 
Miche-gah'-bc-gong (great, boundless waters). It was very easy 



APPENDIX E 301 



for the white men who first heard this general term as applied 
to the lake, to accept it as a proper name, and to translate the 
Indian term into Michigan, as we have it to-day. 

It is a source of gratification that the names applied to the 
Great River by the Jesuit fathers who first plied their birch-bark 
canoes upon its surface, did not stick. They were wonderful men, 
those old missionaries, devoted and self-sacrificing beyond belief; 
but when it came to naming the new-found lands and rivers, there 
was a monotony of religious nomenclature. Riviere St. Louis 
and Riviere de la Conception are neither of them particularly 
descriptive of the Great River. In this connection it must be 
said, however, that there was something providential in the zeal 
of the good missionaries in christening as they did, the ports at 
either end of the upper river run. The mention of St. Louis 
and St. Paul lent the only devotional tinge to steamboat conver- 
sation in the fifties. Without this there would have been nothing 
religious about that eight hundred miles of Western water. Even 
as it was, skepticism crept in with its doubts and questionings. 
We all know who St. Paul was, and his manner of life; but it is 
difficult to recall just what particular lines of holiness were fol- 
lowed by Louis XIV to entitle him to canonization. 

Trempealeau Mountain, as it is called, situated two miles 
above Trempealeau Landing, Wisconsin, is another marvel of na- 
ture that attracted the attention of the Indians. It is an island 
of limestone, capped with sandstone, rising four hundred feet above 
the level of the river. Between the island and the mainland is 
a slough several hundred feet wide, which heads some five or six 
miles above. The Winnebago gave it a descriptive name: Hay- 
me-ah'-shan (Soaking Mountain). In Dakota it was Min-nay- 
chon'-ka-hah (pronounced Minneshon'ka) , meaning Bluff in the 
Water. This was translated by the early French voyageurs into: 
Trempe a Veau — the Mountain that bathes its feet in the water. 
There is no other island of rock in the Mississippi above the upper 
rapids ; none rising more than a few feet above the water. 

It is but natural that the Indians who for centuries have 
peopled the banks of the Mississippi, should have many legends 
attaching to prominent or unusual features of the river scenery. 
Where the Indians may have failed, imaginative palefaces have 
abundantly supplied such deficiencies. 



302 THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 

There is one legend, however, that seems to have had its 
foundation in fact — that of the tragedy at Maiden Rock, or 
Lover's Leap, the bold headland jutting out into Lake Pepin on 
the Wisconsin side, some six or eight miles below the head of the 
lake. Dr. Bunnell devoted much study to this legend, and his 
conclusion is that it is an historic fact. Divested of the multiplicity 
of words and metaphor with which the Indian story-teller, the 
historian of his tribe, clothes his narrative, the incident was this: 

In the days of Wah-pa-sha the first, chief of the Dakota band 
of that name, there was, in the village of Keoxa, near the site of 
the present Minnesota city of Winona, in the latter part of the 
eighteenth century, a maiden whose name was Winona ( Wi-no-na : 
first-born daughter). She had formed an attachment for a young 
hunter of the tribe, which was fully reciprocated by the young 
man. They had met often, and agreed to a union, on which all 
their hopes of happiness centered. But on applying to her 
family, the young suitor was curtly dismissed with the information 
that the girl had been promised to a warrior of distinction who 
had sued for her hand. Winona, however, persisted in her pref- 
erence for the hunter; whereupon the father took measures to 
drive him out of the village, and the family began to use harsh 
measures to coerce the maiden into a union with the warrior 
whom they had chosen for her husband. She was finally assured 
that she was, with or without her consent, to be the bride of the 
man of their choice. 

About this time a party was formed to go to Lake Pepin to 
lay in a store of blue clay, which they used as a pigment. Winona, 
with her family, was of the party. Arriving at their destination 
the question of her marriage with the warrior again came up, and 
she was told that she would be given to him that very day. Upon 
hearing this final and irrevocable decree the girl withdrew, and 
while the family were preparing for the wedding festival she 
sought the top of the bluff now known as Maiden Rock. From 
this eminence she called down to her family and friends, telling 
them that she preferred death to a union with one she did not love, 
and began singing her death song. Many of the swiftest runners 
of the tribe, with the warrior to whom she had been sold, imme- 
diately ran for the summit of the cliff in order to restrain her; 
but before they reached her she jumped headlong from the height, 



APPENDIX E 303 



and was dashed to pieces on the jagged rocks a hundred and fifty 
feet below. 

This story was in 1817 related to Major Long, of the United 
States Army, by a member of Wahpasha's tribe, Wa-ze-co-to, who 
claimed to have been an eyewitness of the tragedy. Wazecoto 
was an old man at the time, and his evident feeling as he related 
the tale went far toward convincing Major Long that the narrator 
was reciting the tale of an actual occurrence. 

Maiden Rock itself is a bluff about four hundred feet in 
height. One hundred and fifty feet of it is a sheer precipice; the 
other two hundred and fifty is a steep bluff covered with loose 
rocks, and grown up to straggling scrub oaks. Some versions of 
the legend state that Winona in her grief leaped from the bluff into 
the waters of the lake and was drowned. On my only visit to 
the top of the Leap, in company with Mr. Wilson, the mate, we 
found it somewhat difficult to throw a stone into the water from 
the top of the bluff. If Winona made it in one jump she must 
have been pretty lithe, even for an Indian. 

I hope that I may not be dubbed an iconoclast, in calling atten- 
tion to the fact that Indian stories similar to this have been localized 
all over our country. Lovers' Leaps can be counted by the score, 
being a part of the stock in trade of most summer resorts. Another 
difficulty with the tale is, that the action of the young pair does 
not comport with the known marriage customs of Indians. 




Map of the Mississippi between St. Louis and St. Paul. 



Ind 



ex 



Ind 



ex 



A. B. Chambers: steamboat, 238. 

Able, Capt. Dan: 259. 

Accordion: 16. 

Adriatic: steamboat, 238. 

Africa: 161. 

Afton (Catfish) Bar: 107. 

Agents, transfer: 30. 

Ainsworth, Capt. J. C: 275. 

Alex. Mitchell: steamboat, 122, 124. 

Alford, Capt. Pliny A.: 282, 293. 

Algoma: steamboat, 18. 

Allegheny River: 66. 

Allen, Capt. Charles J.: 225, 226, 

273. 
Alma, Wis.: 293. 
Alton, 111.: 29, 188. 
Alton Line. See Steamboats. 
Alton Slough: 290. 
Altoona: steamboat, 238. 
Amaranth Island: 258. 
American Fur Co.: 266, 282, 284. 
American Society of Mechanical 

Engineers: 43. 
Anchor Line. See Steamboats. 
Anderson, Capt. — : 234, 268. 
Andrews, Capt. — : 284. 
Anglo-Saxons: 70, 114, 211. 
Anthony Wayne: steamboat, 277. 
Antietam: battle of, 215. 
Appendices: 257-303. 
Apple River: 104. 
Appomattox Ct. House: battle of, 

215. 
Archer: steamboat, 265. 
19 



Argo Island: 259. 

Armstrong, Joseph: pilot, 116, 294. 

Army: 80, 83, 84, 114, "5. H^y 
190, 191, 204-206, 209, 212-214, 
224, 226, 241, 283, 285, 288, 292. 

Arnold, John: pilot, 116. 

Arrowheads: 20. 

Arrow Rock, Mo.: 288. 

Art and artists: 152, 155, 283, 293. 

Assault: 48. 

Atchinson, Capt. G. W.: 258, 271, 
277, 293. 

Atchison, Capt. John: 279. 

Atchison, Capt. Joseph: 274. 

Atchison, Capt. Mark: 284. 

Atchison, Capt. Pierce: 269, 271. 

Atlas Island: 259, 264, 279. 

Australia: steamboat, 238. 

Aymond, Capt. F.: 276. 

Ayres, Lieut. Romeyn, U. S. A.: 212. 

Badger State: steamboat, 260. 

Baldwin, Capt.—: 269. 

Ball, — : clerk, 292. 

Baltimore, Md.: 80. 

Bangor, Maine: 272. 

Banks (Newfoundland): 15. 

Banks, bankers, and banking: 174- 

iSo. 
Barbers: 157. 
Barger, — : clerk, 279. 
Barkeepers: 132, 135. 
Barley: 169, 247. 
Barnes, Charles: 246. 



3o8 



INDEX 



Barry, Capt. — : 258. 

Bass, black: 104. 

Bateaux. See Ships. 

Bates, Capt. — : 257. 

Bates, David G. : 270. 

Battles: 20, 2i (Indian), 184, 203, 
211, 212, 215, 293. 

Bayous: 22, 227. 

Beadle, Hiram: pilot, 116. 

Beans: 29. 

Bears: 22. 

Beaver, Pa.: 267. 

Beaver Falls: 206. 

Beebe, Capt. Edward H.: 265. 

Beech, Lieut. — , U. S. A.: 293. 

Beef Slough: 76, 95, 247. 

Bell, Capt. Edwin: 258, 285. 

Bellefontaine Bend: 276. 

Belle Plaine, Minn.: 209. 

Belle Vernon, Pa.: 269, 274, 276, 
279, 287, 289, 293. 

Bellevue, Iowa: 118. 

Ben Campbell: steamboat, 117. 

Ben Franklin: name for steamboats, 
229. 

Berger, Capt. — : 286. 

Berlin, Ger. : 201. 

Bersie, Capt. Hiram: 271, 289. 

Biddle, Maj. John: 187. 

Big Stone Lake: 269. 

Bissell, Capt. James: 275, 282, 289. 

Black, James (Jim) : pilot, 80, 116, 
268. 

Black Hawk: Indian chief, 184, 293. 

Black River: 113, 260. 

Blacksmiths: 35, 188. 

Blaisdell: family in Prescott, 22. 

Blaisdell, Nathaniel: 35, 277 (engi- 
neer). 

Blake, Capt. — : 276. 

Blakeley, Capt. Russell: 113, 180, 
259, 265, 270, 282. 

Blanchard, Mr. — : 56. 

Bloody Island: 115. 

Bloomington, Iowa: 265. 

Boats. See Ships. 



Boilers: 39; how cleaned, 37. See 

also Engines. 
Boland, Capt. — : 245, 253. 
Books : 200. 
Boston, Mass.: 80, 84. 
Boughton: family in Prescott, 22. 
Boulanger's Island: 223. 
Boyd, Capt. — : 260. 
Brady, Capt. — : 266. 
Brandy: 108, 135. 
Brickie, Capt. — : 278. 
Bridges: 148, 189, 250, 260, 266, 272. 
Briggs, William: engineer, 272. 
Brisbois & Rice: 265. 
Britt's Landing, Tenn. : 150, 282. 
Brock, Capt. — : pilot, 117. 
Broken Chute: 273. 
Brooks, Capt. John: 257. 
Brown, Capt. L. : 293. 
Brownsville, Pa.: 95, 258, 260, 263, 

266, 267, 277, 278, 285, 287, 289, 

294. 
Brownsville Chute: 261. 
Brunette: steamboat, 238. 
Bryant, — : clerk, 279. 
Buchanan, Pres. James: 144. 
Buffalo, N. Y.: 187. 
Buford, Capt. Thomas B.: 280. 
Bull Run: battle of, 215. 
Bunnell, Dr. Lafayette: Hist, of 

Winona, cited, 150, 300, 302. 
Burbank & Co., J. C: 258. 
Burke, Capt. — : 281. 
Burlington, Iowa: 264. 
Burlington: name for steamboats, 

230. 
Burnett, Ellsworth: 205. 
Burns, Thomas (Tom) : pilot, 78, 

80-88, 103, Ii6, 240-242, 245, 248, 

249, 253, 268. 

Cables: 144. 

Cairo, III.: 185, 187, 188, 242, 253. 

California, Pa.: ships built at, 257, 

260, 269, 271, 273, 276, 277, 281, 

283, 284, 291, 292. 
Campbell, Capt. — : 273. 



INDEX 



309 



Campbell & Smith (Steamboat Co.) : 


Chittenden, Capt. H. M., U. S. 


A.: 


265. 




cited, 186, 230, 232, 233. 




Campbell's Chain: 264. 




Cholera: 274. 




Canada: 21, 64, 196. 




Cincinnati, Ohio: 144, 175, 184, 


187, 


Canals: 79, 199, 223, 225. 




242, 259, 265, 268, 269-272, 


276, 


Canoes. See Ships. 




280-283, 292. 




Cape Girardeau, Mo.: 188. 




City Belle: steamboat, loi. 




Captains (of steamboats) : 59, 9: 


,95, 


City of Quincy: steamboat, 117. 
Clara: steamboat, 239. 




99, 112, 124, 126, 143, 144, 


157, 


Clark, Capt. J.: 276, 281. 




161, 163, 167, 170, 173, 193, 


199, 


Clarkesville, Ind.: 188. 




229. 




Clarkesville Island: 281. 




Cards, Playing: 139-141. 




Clayton, Iowa: 60. 




Carlisle College: 216. 




Clerks (on steamboats) : 14, 37 


59, 


Carlton, E. : clerk, 267. 




71, 167, 179, 251, 252, 267, 


270, 


Carpenters: 50, 163, j^s, 194, 


213, 


275, 276, 278, 279, 281-283, 


286, 


275. 




288, 292-294; first or chief, 52 


, 55- 


Carson's Landing, Mo.: 278. 




57> 65, 72, 136, 157. 163, 170, 


240, 


Casey,—: clerk, 288. 




242, 268 ; second or "mud," 52 


, 57, 


Cassville, Wis.: 167. 




58, 61, 65, 163, 170, 240, 242, 
268. 


248, 


Cassville Crossing: 86, 95. 










Cleveland, Pres. Grover: 84. 




Cassville Slough: 250. 




Cline,— : 284. 




Casualties: 69, 74, 76, 96, 103, 


104, 


Clinton, Iowa: 29. 




172, 192-195, 210, 211, 214, 


215, 


Clothing: 26. 




227, 229-239, 257-293. 




Cochrane, Capt. John: 280. 




Catfish Bar (Reef) : 107, 108, 


192. 


Coffin,—: clerk, 292. 




See also Afton. 




Cold Harbor, Va.: 203. 




Cat Island: 280. 




Cole, Capt. George B.: 284, 291. 


Catlin, George: artist, 293. 




Colonel Bumford : steamboat, 


184, 


Cedar Creek, Va.: 152. 




187. 




Celts: 70. See also Irish. 




Commerce: large on Mississippi 


13; 


Centennial: steamboat, 124. 




on St. Joseph River, 15; tra 


ding 


Chain of Rocks: 264. 




posts, 21; lines of, 79, 80 


(see 


Challenge: steamboat, 238. 




also Steamboats) ; Mississippi 


may 


Chambers, Capt. Ludlow: 281. 




regain, 80; lessens on Mississ 


ippi, 


Champlin, Capt. A. T.: 263, 282. 


221. 




Channels: in river, how kept. 


40. 


Commissions, shipping: 30. 




Charlevoix, Pierre Francois Xavi- 


Confederates: 50, 211, 212, 231, 


273, 


er de, 8. J.: Hist., cited, 21. 




290. 




Charters, bank: 176. 




Congregationalists: 216. 




Chicago, 111.: 16, 175, 176, 242 


248. 


Congress: 221, 222, 225. 




Chicago River: 113. 




Connolly, Capt. P.: 270. 




Chickens: 127, 128. 




Constans, William: 280. 




Chippewa: name for steamboats 


230. 


Contractors: 222-225, 227. 




See also Indians. 




Conway, Capt. — : 267. 




Chippewa River: 113-115, 190, 


263, 


Cook, Samuel: clerk, 292. 




276, 289. 




Cooks: 126, 128, 199. 





3IO 



INDEX 



Cooley, K. C: clerk, 283. 




Dean, William: 282. 


Coones, Capt. — : 289. 




Deck hands: 163, 193, 194, 215, 250, 


Coon Slough: 84, 103, 278, 283 
Cora: steamboat, 287. 




262. 
Deer: 22. 


Cormack, Pleasant: pilot, 113. 




DeMarah (Demerer — corruption), 


Corwith Bros.: 294. 




Louis: earliest steamboat pilot of 


Corwith, Henry L. : 265. 
Cossen, — : 258. 




upper Mississippi, 112, 113. 
Demerer, Louis. See DeMarah. 


Cottonwood Prairie {noio Canton): 


Denmark: name for steamboats, 230. 


188. 




De Soto, Hernando: 247. 


Council Bluffs, Iowa: 264. 




Des Plaines River: 113. 


Coureur du bois: 113. 




Detroit, Mich.: 187. 


Crawford, Capt. — : ii2. 




Diamond Bluff: 26, 35, 60, 246. 


Crawford County: 113. 




Diamond Jo Line. See Steamboats. 


Creeks: 22. 




Dikes: 85, 225, 227, 228, 239. 


Crows: 206. 
Cuba: 185. 




Dinan, J. W.: clerk, 270. 
Ditto, — : clerk, 281. 


Culver, Capt.—: 281. 




Di Vernon: steamboat, 259. 


Cumberland River: 250. 
Cupp, William: pilot, ii6. 




Divers: 124. 

Dr. Franklin: name for steamboats, 


Cupps, William: 289. 
Cushing, Thomas (Tommy, Tom) : 
pilot, 73, 78, 80, 86, 88, 99, n6, 


184, 230, 288. 
Dodge, Col.—: U. S. Engineer, 228. 
Doemly, Ingenuous: 139, 180. 


159, 268, 293. 
Dacota City, Nebr.: 283. 




Dogs: 200. 

Donnelly, Patsey: barkeeper, 135, 
136, 140. 


Daily Bugle: newspaper, 180, 
Dakota, territory: 80. 
Dakota, Minn.: 270. 


181. 


Dousman, H. L.: 265. 
Dove, Bill: gambler, 139, 141. 
Dove, Sam: gambler, 139, 141, 


Dakota Co., Minn.: 180. 




Dozier, Capt. — : 289. 


Dalles, Wis.: 202. 




Dredges: 228. 


Dalton, Stephen: pilot, 116. 




Dreming, T. G. : pilot, 116. 


Dams: 85, 225, 227, 228. 
Danube: name for steamboats, 


230. 


Du Barry, Lieut. Beekman: 212. 
DuBois, J. D.: clerk, 283. 


Davidson, Payton S. : 124, 125, 

268. 
Davidson, Com. William F. : 


267, 
122- 


Dubuque, Iowa: 61, 66, 123, 135, 

164, 172, 265, 268, 269, 270, 291. 

Dubuque: name for steamboats, 230. 


124, 267, 269. 
Davidson Line. See Steamboats. 


Dubuque & St. Paul Packet Co. See 
Steamboats. 


Davis, Capt. — : 124. 




Duck Creek Chain: 275. 


Davis, Charles: pilot, 264. 
Davis, Jefferson: 114. 




Ducks: 23. 

Dunleith, 111. {now E. Dubuque) : 


Davis, Capt. John B. : 269, 283, 
Dawley, — : clerk, 271. 
Day, Capt.—, U. S. A.: 293. 
Day, Capt. Henry R. : 291. 
Dayton Bluff: 103, 155, 283. 


292. 


30, 56, 130, 144, 147, 164, 167, 
168, 172, 179, 180, 258, 268, 271, 
279, 280, 283, 292. 

Dutch: 114; Pennsylvania, 66, 70. 

Dynamos: 79. 



INDEX 



Eads & Nelson: 238. 

East Dubuque, 111.: its former name, 
30. 

Eden, Capt. and Maj. Robert (Bob) 
C: son of English baronet, 196- 
205, 266. 

Editors: 182, 196. 

Edward Bates: steamboat, 233. 

Electricity: 34, 89, 245, 247, 249. 

Elizabeth, Ky. : 272, 283. 

Elizabeth, Pa.: 260. 

Elizabethtown, Ky. : 280. 

Emigrants: 65. 

Emilie Bend: 266. 

Endors: steamboat, 233. 

Engineers (generally of steamboats, 
although at times army and civ- 
il) : 14, 35, 42, 56, 57. 72, 73. 79 

(govt.), 96, 105, no, 112, 148, 
163, 170, 184, 199, 207, 208, 210, 
213, 216, 222, 224-227, 230, 242, 
246, 247, 265, 268, 270, 272, 277, 
283, 284, 287, 289, 290, 292, 294; 

assistant or "cub," 39, 50, 52; 
two types, 46 ; description and 
duties, 35-40, 43-51. 

Engine-room, of ship: 38-45, 193, 
207, 246. 

Engines (of steamboats) : 51, 75, 96, 
97, 102, 150, 151, 163, 194, 207- 
209, 213, 246, 248, 263, 276, 279, 
289; described, 36, 38, 39, 47; of 
stern-wheelers, 39 (two) ; on side- 
wheelers, 40-43 ; poppet-valve, 41, 
44; repaired, 36; danger of cen- 
tering, 41 ; stroke, defined, 41 ; 
how power of, increased, 41, 42. 

England: 203, 204. 

English: 114. 

Enterprise: steamboat, 199, 200, 279. 

Enterprise Island: 266. 

Equator: steamboat, 191, 194. 

Estes, Capt. J. B.: 273. 

Ethiopians: 70. See also Negroes. 

Europe: 185. 

Excelsior: steamboat, 132, 156, 157, 
177. 



Explosions (on steamboats) : 39, 73, 
230-232, 262, 265; cause, 39, 42, 

43, 47- 

Falls Cirv: steamboat, 234, 238. 

Fanny Harris: steamboat, 35, 38, 49, 
51, 74, 80, 84, 99, 118, 120, 13s, 
139, 15*^. 206, 210, 214, 234, 237, 
245, 269. 

Farley, — : clerk, 264. 

Farmer, Capt. John: 269. 

Farms: 60, 80, 176, 185, 187, 195, 
222. 

Father of Waters: 152. See Mis- 
sissippi River. 

Faucette, Capt. William: 48, 55, 61, 
258, 268. 

Favorite: steamboat, loi. 

Fay, Capt. — : 274. 

Federal Arch: steamboat, 238. 

Fevre River: 74, 80, 117, 270, 275. 

Fifield: family in Prescott, 22. 

Fifield, Hon. Samuel S. : lieut.-gov. 
of Wis., 35, 276. 

Firearms: 20, 200, 201, 211, 213, 214. 

Fire Canoe: steamboat, 234. 

Firemen: 47, 48, 158, 194, 199, 208, 
215, 242, 247, 250, 287. 

Fires: 232-234, 262, 263, 265. 

Fish: 19, 23, 104, 189, 199. 

Fisher, Capt. William: pilot, 78, 116, 
117, 121, 123, 260, 276, 292. 

Fishing tackle: 200. 

Flaherty, Capt. — : 294. 

Floods: 13, 207-211, 216, 238. 

Flour: 29, 96, 169. 

Forest Rose: steamboat, 239. 

Forges: 35. 

Fort Armstrong: 188. 

Fort Crawford: 114, 115. 

Fort Edwards, 111.: 188. 

Fort Haskell: 203. 

Fort Henry: 84. 

Fort Ridgeley, Minn.: 206, 211-220. 

Fort Snelling, Minn.: 112, 187, 207, 
210, 2x5, 257, 259, 261, 263, 265, 
266, 269, 270, 271, 274, 276-279, 
281, 282, 284, 285, 287-291, 293. 



312 



INDEX 



Fort Sterling: 268. 

Fort Sumter, S. C. : 209, 213. 

Fort Winnebago {noiu Portage, q. 
v.), Wis.: 279, 288. 

Foundries: i6i. 

Fowl, wild: 22. 

Fox River: 112, 196, 199, 202, 279, 
28r. 

France: 112. 

Frank Steele: steamboat, loi. 

Frauds: bank and land, 174-183. 

Freedom, Pa.: 263, 266, 273. 

Freight: 19, 29, 30, 33, 34, 52, 55, 
57, 64, 65, 74, 76, 109, 137, 143, 
147, 149, 151, 162, 164, 167-169, 
171-173, 179, 185, 233, 240, 241, 
246, 248, 250, 252, 266, 267, 270, 
291, 292. 

French: 21, 113, 114, 301. 

Frenchman's: sand bar, 223. 

Frontier: steamboat, 184. 

Fruit: 23. 

Fuel: on river boats, 59-63. 

Fulton, Capt. L.: 263. 

Fulton City, Iowa: 273. 

Furman, Charles: clerk, 266. 

Furs: 22, 164, 169. 

Fur-traders: 112. 

F. X. Aubrey: steamboat, 239. 

Gabbert, Capt. W. H.: 118, 258, 
268, 271, 272, 283, 292. 

Galena, III.: 19, 36, 37, 55, 56, 66, 
71, 80, 83, 84, 99, 115, 117, 118, 
127, 129, 148, 149, 164, 167-169, 
172, 182, 184, 187-189, 237, 257- 
294. 

Galena: name for steamboats, 230. 

Galena, etc.. Packet Co. See Steam- 
boats. 

Gallipolis, O.: 272. 

Gambling: 124, 138-142. 

Game: 22, 199, 201. 

Gasconade River: 279. 

Gates, William R., brother-in-law of 
G. B. Merrick: 30. 

Gauge, steam: 48. 

General Brooke: steamboat, 152. 



Gilbert, Capt. — : 268. 

Gilpatrick, Henry: pilot, Ii6. 

Girdon, G. R.: clerk, 294. 

Glasgow, O.: 289. 

Gleim, Capt. E. H.: 281, 284, 287, 
293. 

Gleim, F. M. : clerk, 272. 

Glenmont, Wis.: 195. 

Gloucester, Mass.: 15. 

Gody, Alex.: pilot, 116. 

Gold: in mountains near Missouri 
River, 164. 

Golden Era: steamboat, 80. 

Golden State: steamboat, 270. 

Goll, Capt. C. B.: 270, 273. 

Goodell, Capt. — : 286. 

Gordon, Gen. — : 203. 

Grafton, Mo.: 273. 

Grant, Maj.-Gen. Ulysses S. : 212. 

Gray, Capt. — : 107, 108, 109, 271. 

Gray, Capt. R. C: 264, 273, 286. 

Gray, Capt. S. E.: 80. 

Gray, Capt. William: 273. 

Great Northwestern Stage Lines: 
258. 

Great River: appellation of Mis- 
sissippi {q. v.), 13. 

Green, — : clerk, 286. 

Green, Capt. Asa B. : 190-195, 267, 
292. 

Green Bay, Wis.: H2, 279. 

Greenlee, Capt. — : 262. 

Grey Cloud: sand bar, 95, 223. 

Grey Eagle: steamboat, 41, 144, 147, 
148, 152, 184. 

Griffith, Capt. Thomas H.: 262, 285. 

Griffiths, Capt. — : 294. 

Guardapie, Joe: pilot, 113, 114. 

Guttenburg Channel: 249. 

Guttenburg Landing, Iowa: 274. 

Guyandotte: 263. 

Haddock, William: 182. 
Half-breeds: 112, 113, 115. See also 

Indians. 
Hall, Peter: pilot, ii6. 
Halliday, Edward W.: clerk, 278. 



INDEX 



313 



Hamilton, William ("Billy") : engi- 
neer, 35, 38, 46-51, 73, i59> 268. 

Hanks, Stephen: pilot, 116. 

Hanna, Capt. Phil: 279. 

Hannibal, Mo.: 29, 188, 229. 

Hardman, Capt. — : 259. 

Hargus, Charles (Charley) : clerk, 
55, 56, 61, 62, 13s, 180, 268, 271, 
276. 

Harlow, Capt. — : 271. 

Harlow, Samuel (Sam) : pilot, 116, 
276, 279. 

Harriman, Gen. Samuel: 141. 

Harris Bros.: 265. 

Harris, Capt. Daniel Smith: 144, 
148, 149, 184, 187, 189, 265, 270, 
272, 274, 276, 282, 284, 286, 288- 
290, 292, 293. 

Harris, Jackson (Jack) : pilot, 103, 
116, 283, 292. 

Harris, James: 184. 

Harris, Keeler: engineer, 290. 

Harris, Meeker K. : 265, 278, 289, 
294. 

Harris, Capt. Nathaniel: 276. 

Harris, Oliver: 287. 

Harris, R. Scribe: 184, 265, 270, 284, 
285, 289, 292. 

Harris Slough: 74, 80. 

Hastings, Minn.: 20, 21, 115, 122, 
140, 168, 191, 195, 245, 273. 

Hatcher, Capt. J. R. : 269, 277, 293. 

Havaszthy, Augustin: Count de Cas- 
tro, 287. 

Hawes, Chaplain — : officiates at 
wedding, 204. 

Hay, Capt. — : 281. 

Hay, Col. John: cited, 46. 

Haycock, Capt. — : 271, 289. 

Hempstead, William: 294. 

Henderson, Billy: 132, 267. 

Herculaneum, Mo.: 188. 

Hewitt, Capt. Stephen: 280. 

Highland Mary: steamboat, 282. 

Hight, Capt. — : 261. 

Hill, Capt. John B.: 285. 

Hill, Capt. Thomas B.: 281. 

Hoffman, Capt. — : 263. 



Holcomb, E. V.: pilot, 116, 277, 280. 
Holloway, J. F. : describes steamboat 

race, 41, 43-45. 
Hooper, Capt. William H.: 258, 

279, 290. 
Hopkins, — : clerk, 274. 
Horton, Charles: clerk, 275. 
Hoskins, Capt. H.: 278. 
Hotelling, Capt. Peter: 279. 
Howard's Bend: 289. 
H. S. Allen: steamboat, 80, 104, 106, 

108. 
Hudson, Wis.: 29, 83, 108, 109, 148, 

195, 201. 
Humbertson, Capt. — : 281. 
Hungarians: 65. 
Hunt, Hiram: engineer, 272. 
Hunt, W. E.: 264. 
Hunters: 20. 

Hurd, Capt. J. Y. : 272, 283. 
Huron, Lake: 300. 

Ice: steamboats crushed in, 234, 237, 
238, 239, 257, 258. 

Hlinois, state: 18, 30, 64, 80, 84, 
175, 188. 

Illinois River: 231, 250, 259, 265. 

Immigrants and immigration: 19, 62. 

Improvements: cost of, 222, 223^ 
226; on upper Mississippi (1866- 
76), 297. 

Indiana, state: 175. 

Indian Mission: 262. 

Indians: 13, 18-28, 113, 114, 184, 187, 
189, 201, 202, 209, 211-213, 219, 
220, 287, 293 ; numerous about 
Mississippi River, 20; chiefs, 21, 
22; squaws, 22; characteristics, 
23 ; nomenclature and legends, 300- 
303. Various tribes — Chippewa, 
19, 20, 21, 112-114, 200, 219, 271, 
300; Dakota (Dakotah), 20, H2, 
300-302 {see also below Sioux) ; 
Hurons, 112; Sioux, 19, 20, 21, 22 
(Red Wing band), 82, 182, 200, 
206, 211, 212 (agency), 216, 219 
(various bands), 284; Winneba- 
go, 301. 



314 



INDEX 



Indian Territory: 211. 




Key City: steamboat, 84, 89, 


lOI, 


Indies: 185. 




103, 148, 149, 151, 275, 277, 


280, 


Industries: 29, 30, 113, 161, i 


62. 


282. 




Insurance: 162, 234. 




Kinestone, James: engineer, 28; 


• 


Intoxication: 66, 115, 140, 141, 


157- 


King, — : 289. 




Iowa, state: 64, 89, 219, 248. 




King, Capt. George L.: 282. 




Iowa Island: 275. 




King, John: pilot, 78, 116. 




Irish: 48, 49, 65, 66, 69, 70, 


114, 


Kingman, Capt. — : 267, 292. 




13s, 215, 241. 




Kinnickinnic Bar: 107. 




Iron and steel: 163. 




Kinnickinnic River: 204, 205. 




Irvine, Capt. — : 286. 




Knapp, Geo. B. : 270. 




Islands: 21, 22, no, in, 188, 


189, 






223, 224, 232, 248, 257-259. 




La Barge, Capt. Joseph: 264, 


266, 


Italians: 65. 




271, 274, 284. 




Itasca: steamboat, 84, 144, 147, 


151. 


La Crosse, Wis.: 29, 112, 150, 


167, 


277. 




183, 208, 216, 260, 267-269, 


271, 






275, 281, 283, 284, 287, 292, 


293. 


Jackins, Capt. — : 268. 




Lady Franklin: steamboat, 171. 




James, Capt. — : 284. 




Laffertj', Capt.—: 285, 288. 




Jameson, Capt. — : 292. 




Lagrange, Mo.: 279. 




Jenks, — : 172, 291. 




Lake City, Minn.: 246. 




Jenks, Capt. J. B.: 280. 




Lakeland, Minn.: 29, 108. 




Jesuits: 301. 




Lakes: 19, 29; Great, 117, 187, 


200, 


Jewell, Charles (Charley): 


pilot, 


300. 




80, 106, 192, 193, 267, 273. 




Lambs: 127. 




J. M. White: steamboat, 41. 




Land: government, 60; frauds. 


180- 


John M. Chambers: steamboat. 


264. 


183. 




Johnson, — : 291. 




Lansing, Iowa: 89, 122, 123. 




Johnson, E. A.: clerk, 292. 




La Pointe, Charles: pilot, 115. 




Johnson, John: 182. 




Laughton, Capt. W. H.: 122 


-124, 


Jones, Gen. George W., U. S 


A.: 


270, 271, 283. 




293- 




Lawrence, 0.: 269. 




Jones, Joseph: 118. 




Laws, banking: 174. 




Josephine: steamboat, 249. 




Lay, John: engineer, 192, 193, 


194, 


Josie: steamboat, 249. 




195, 267. 
Leadlines: 92, 95. 




Kansas, state: 222. 




Le Claire, Iowa: 29. 




Kate Cassell: steamboat, 35, 84, 


"5, 


Lee, Capt. John: 281. 




ISO. 




Lee, Gen. Robert E.: 141, 203. 




Keithsburg, Iowa: 285. 




Le Fevre {noiv Galena, q. v.), 


111.: 


Kendall, Ned: musician, 157. 




184. 




Kennett, Capt. S. M.: 278. 




Le Seuer, Pierre Charles: French 


Kent, Capt.—: 282. 




explorer and trader, 21. 




Kentucky: steamboat, 279. 




Lewis, W. S.: clerk, 275. 




Keokuk, Iowa: 188, 232, 239. 


See 


Libbie Conger: steamboat, 249 




also Steamboats. 




Liberty Landing, Mo.: 259. 




Keokuk Rapids: 117. 




Limestone: 301. 




Keoxa: Indian village, 302. 




Lincoln, Abraham: 161, 215. 





INDEX 



315 



Lindergreen, Henry: printer, i8i. 
Link, Henry: pilot, 102, 245, 247, 

252, 253. 
Liquors: 66, 108, 130-137, 140. 
Little Crow: Sioux chief, 211. 
Little Washington, on Missouri Riv- 
er: 281. 
Locomotives: reversing gear of, 40. 

See also Railroads. 
Lodwick, Capt. Kennedy: 259, 263, 

270. 
Lodwick, Capt. M. W. : 259, 260, 

261, 265. 
Lodwick, Capt. Preston: 265, 282, 

283. 
London, Eng. : 201. 
Long, Maj. — , U. S. A.: 303. 
Long Island Sound: 42. 
Longstreet, Gen. James: 203. 
Louis XIV: king of France, 301. 
Louisiana, Mo.: xS, i88. 
Lover's Leap: 155, 302 (Legend). 

See also Maiden Rock. 
Lucas, Capt. M. E.: 278. 
Lucy Bertram: steamboat, 277. 
Ludloff, Louis: 215. 
Luella: steamboat, 18, 184. 
Lumber and lumbering: 29, 113, 114, 

162, 185, 190, 191, 221. 
Lusk, Capt. J. H.: 281. 
Lynn, Lewis P.: 278. 
Lyon, Capt. — : 259. 
Lyon, Kimball (Kim) : 16, 17. 
Lyons, Capt. — : 292. 

McAllister, Capt. — : 274. 
McClintock, Capt. — : 274. 
McClure, Capt. John: 265. 
McCoy, Capt. E. M.: 288. 
McCoy, James B. : pilot, 115, n6, 

268. 
McDonald, George: engineer, 46, 

241, 24s, 246, 253, 268. 
McGregor, Iowa: 179, 248, 249. 
McGuire, Capt.—: 258. 
McKeesport, Pa.: 257, 258, 261, 264, 

271. 



McLagan, Capt Ed.: 280. 

McMahan, Capt. — : 286, 287. 

McPhail, Sandy: raftsman, 114, 115. 

Machinery: 35, 36, 72, no, ni, 
227, 272, 284. 

Mackinac, Mich.: n2. 

Madison, Iowa: 258. 

Maiden Rock (near Winona) : 155, 
283, 302, 303. 

Mail: 147. 

Maitland, — : clerk, 282. 

Malin, Capt. J. W.: 278. 

Mallen, Bill: 139, 141. 

Malta Bend: 279. 

Manning, Charley: pilot, n6. 

Maratta, Capt. — : 285. 

Marquette, Jacques, S. J.: 113. 

Marshall, Sam: musician, 158, 159. 

Martin, Capt. — : 264, 267, 281. 

Maryland, state: 47. 

Mary Morton: steamboat, 102, 240- 
242, 245, 247, 249, 250. 

Mason, Capt. Isaac M. : 259, 260, 
269. 

Massacres, Indian: 206, 213. 

Mates (on steamboats) : 64-73, 75, 
77. 93, 95. 126, 136, 194, 251, 253, 
277; first, 163; second, 71, 72, 163. 

Mathers, Charles (Charley): clerk, 
240, 245, 253. 

Maxwell, Capt. O. H.: 261, 290, 293. 

Melville, Geo. R.: clerk, 265. 

Mendota, Minn.: 206. 

Mermaid: steamboat, 289. 

Merrick: family in Prescott, 22. 

Merrick, Col. — : 211. 

Merrick, George B. (author): an- 
cestrj% 15; birthplace, 15; early 
impressions, 15-19; first glance of 
Mississippi River, 18; escapes 
from drowning, 26; chased by 
wolves, 27, 28 ; enters river ser- 
vice, 35; becomes ship pantry boy, 
35, 276; printer, 35, i8i; second 
or "mud" clerk, 37, 52-58, 268; 
second engineer, 38-45 ; never cen- 
tered his engine, 41; bashful, 52; 
appointment as clerk becomes per- 



3i6 



INDEX 



manent, 56; threatened with loss 
of position, 61 ; pilot, 80, 266, 267, 
273 ; his initiation as pilot, io6- 
iio; on "Golden Era," 80; on 
"Equator," 192; accident to his 
boat, 104; engaged by Eden, 199; 
his experience with wild-cat mon- 
ey, 179; knows game haunts, 200; 
great reader, 201 ; visits Maiden 
Rock, 303 ; enlists and serves dur- 
ing Civil War, 51, 83, 190, 268; 
marries, 83 ; agent and superin- 
tendent of N. Y. Steamship Co., 
83; railroad agent, 83, 240; news- 
paper man, 83 ; his trip on "Mary 
Morton," 240-253. 

Merrick, L. H., father of G. B. M.: 
29, 30. 

Merrick & Co., L. H.: 30-33, 55. 

Merrick, Samuel, brother of G. B. 
M.: 25, 26. 

Messenger: steamboat, 149. 

Methodists: 190, 191. 

Metropolitan: steamboat, 132. 

Mexico, Gulf of: 64. 

Miami Bend: 276. 

Michigan, state: 15, 19, 175, 186, 
199, 20I ; possible etymology of, 
300, 301. 

Michigan, Lake: 300, 301. 

Middleton, Capt. — : 284. 

Miller: family in Prescott, 22. 

Miller, Capt. — : 274. 

Miller, John S.: 188. 

Mills: 18, 169, 221, 222, 284. 

Milwaukee, Wis.: 248. 

Mines, lead: 184. 

Minks: 22. 

Minneapolis, Minn.: 96, 169, 183, 
226. See also St. Anthony. 

Minnesota, territory and state: 19, 
20, 62, 80, 116, 117, 129, 152, 155, 
162, 164, 180-182, 206, 211, 213, 
219, 222, 248. 

Minnesota Packet Co. See Steam- 
boats. 

Minnesota River: 206, 207, 209, 216, 
258, 259, 261, 264, 265, 267-269, 



271, 273, 275, 276, 280, 281, 285, 
288-290, 293, 294. 

Minnesota: steamboat, 152. 

Minnesota Belle, steamboat: i8, 19, 
152. 

Mishawaka, Mich.: 187. 

Missionaries: 190, 301. 

Mississippi River: its former glory, 
13; navigation impaired, 13, 56; 
diminished in size, 13 ; boats of, 
compared to others, 15; railroads 
lessen traffic on, 18, 83; traffic of, 
dead, 221, 250; great traffic on, 
19; tributaries to, 19, 20, 199, 206; 
Indians numerous near, 20, 219, 
301; islands in, 21, no, in, 188, 
223, 232, 248, 258, 259, 264, 266, 
277, 279-281, 287, 288, 290, 301; 
sloughs in, 21, 283, 301; descrip- 
tion of banks and valley, 21, 88, 
89, 156, 188, 189, 239; trading 
posts and towns on, 21, 29, 30; 
storms on, 25, no, 122, 123, 231, 
249 ; saloons along, 29 ; ware- 
houses on, 30, 33 ; sand bars and 
reefs in, 36, 41, 74, 76, 85, 92, 93, 
223, 224; steamboats of, described, 
36, 42; explosions on, frequent, 39; 
channels, 40; Com. Porter opens, 
50; requirements necessary for of- 
fices on ships of, 55; woodyards 
along, 59; farms along, 60; slav- 
ery on west bank of, 64; begin- 
ning of its trade boom, 66 ; change 
in character of crews on, 69, 70; 
code of honor of, 74; accidents 
during low water, 74, 76; obstruc- 
tions in, 78 ; piloting and naviga- 
tion on (difficulties, etc.), 78-99, 
101-103, in-116, 223, 224; im- 
provements on, 79, 221-228, 299; 
may regain prestige in commerce, 
79, 80; boats aground in, 80; 
Twain's Life on the Miss., cit- 
ed, 83; numerous turns in, 85; 
dams and dikes in, 85, 225; dif- 
ficulties of paddling on, 85-91; 
pilots must know, 86-88 ; "know- 



INDEX 



317 



ing" it, 92-109; official etiquette 
on, 109 ; pioneer steamboats 
of. III, 112, 187, 257; mod- 
ern boats, no; fur-traders on, 
112; raftsmen on, 113, 114; in- 
cidents of river life on, 117-125; 
steamboatmen on, 124; morals on, 
125, 251; menus of boats on, 126- 
131; water of, used as beverage, 
129-131; contaminated by sewage, 
131; gambling on, 138-142; life 
of steamboats on, i6i ; duration of 
navigation, 170 ; keel boats on, 188 ; 
legends of, 302 ; floods on, 216, 225, 
238; mills along, 221, 222; com- 
mission, 226 ; wrecks on, 227 ; 
snags removed from, 227; dredg- 
ing in, 228 ; losses of steamboats 
on, 229-239; reliving old days on, 
240-253 ; steamboats on upper, be- 
fore 1863, 257-294; rapids in, 
257; origin and etymology of 
name, 300; its French names, 301. 

Missouri Point: 273. 

Missouri River: 112, 130, 131, 164, 
186, 222, 226, 227, 230-233, 237, 
250, 257, 259, 260, 262-266, 271, 
274, 276, 279, 281-285, 287-290. 

Mitchell, Capt. A.: 292. 

Molasses: 29. 

Molino del Rey, Mex.: battle of, 212. 

Money: wild-cat, 174-180. 

Monongahela, Pa.: 263, 291. 

Monopolies: 56, 173. 

Monterey, Mex.: battle of, 212. 

Montford, Capt. A. G.: 289. 

Montgomery, Capt. — : 277, 285. 

Montgomery, Mo. ( ?) : 258, 260. 

Moore, Seth: pilot, 116. 

Moorhead, Minn.: 258. 

Moquoketa Chute: 265. 

Morals: along Mississippi, 114, 124, 
251. 

Moreau, Louis: 113. See also Moro. 

Morehouse, D. B. : 270. 

Morehouse, Capt. Legrand: 268. 

Moro (Morrow, Moreau), Louis; 
pilot, 113. 



Morrison, Capt. — : 258, 259. C % 

Morrison, Capt. C. S.: 283. v- 

Morrison, Capt. G. G.: 260. C » Sk 

Morrison, James: mate, 283. 

Moulton, L N.: 267. 

Moulton, Thomas: 266, 267. 

Mounds: near Mississippi, 21. 

Moundsville, Va. : 292. 

Mountains: 301. 

Mouseau (Mo'-sho), Antoine: half- 
breed Indian chief, 22. 

Mouseau, Louis: pioneer of St. Paul, 
22. 

Mules: 213, 214. 

Mullen, — : clerk, 281. 

Mundy's Landing: 265. 

Murraysville, Pa.: 259, 263. 

Muscatine Bar: 265. 

Music: 16. See also Steamboats. 

Musicians: 157. 

Muskrats: 22. 

Mutinies: on ships, 48, 66, 69. 

Nantucket, R. L: 15. 

Nashville, Tenn. : 279. 

Natchez: steamboat, 143. 

Navigation: lessened on Mississippi, 
13; difficulties of, 206, 207; im- 
provements in, 221-228; greatest 
disaster in western, 234, 235: open- 
ing at St. Paul (1844-62), 295. 

Nebraska, state: 222. 

Nebraska: steamboat, 239. 

Negroes (darkies) : 47, 48, 64, 65, 
70, 127, 128, 136, 157-160, 241, 
250-253, 260. 

New Albany, Ind.: 264, 282, 288, 
291. 

Newburyport, Mass.: 15. 

New England: 130, 131. 

New Orleans, La.: 47, 78, 80, 117, 
143, 185, 230, 250, 272. 

Newport, Minn.: 102. 

New St. Paul: steamboat, 184. 

Newspapers: 202, 203, 238. 

New Ulm, Minn.: 213. 

New York City: 51, 80, 83, 159, 182. 

Nichols, George: ii6. 



3i8 



INDEX 



Nicollet, — : explorer, 290. 




Peltries: 112. See also Furs. 


Niles, Mich.: 15, 17, 186, 187. 




Pemberton, Capt. John C: 212. 


Nine Mile Island: 287. 




Penn's Bend: 262. 


Nininger, Minn.: land frauds at. 


139, 


Pennsylvania, state: 66, 212. 


180-183, 223, 270. 




Pepin, Lake: 29, 35, 149, 234, 237, 


Nobleman, stray: 196-205. 




238, 246, 259, 268-270, 288, 302. 


Nominee: steamboat, 149, 150, 


184, 


Petersburg, Va.: 141, 203. 


274. 




Philadelphia, Pa.: 80. 


Norris, Frank: steward, 292. 




Phil Sheridan: steamboat, 152. 


Northern Belle: steamboat, 152, 
Northerner: steamboat, 148. 
Northern Light: steamboat, 103, 


292. 
IS5. 


Physicians: 57. 

Pictures. See Steamboats. 

Pierce, George S.: clerk, 277. 


Northern Line. See Steamboats. 
Northwestern Line. See Steamboats. 


Pigs: 127. 

Pig's Eye: bad crossing on Mississip- 


Northwestern: newspaper, 202. 
Northwest Territories: 174, 222, 
Norwegian: 114. 


290. 


pi, 95, 223, 245. 
Pike: name for steamboats, 229. 
Pilots: 14, 17, 35, 36, 38-40, 42-44, 

47, 51, 52, 56, 57, 63, 71-74, 76; 


Oak: 60, 61, t6, 303. 




80, 83, 84, 100, loi, 103-105, no, 


Ocean Wave: steamboat, 33, loi 




112, 115, 116, 122, 124, 130, 150, 


Ohio River: 43, 66, 161, 185, 


187, 


151, 163, 170, 188, 199, 202, 207, 


188, 290. 




209, 210, 223, 224, 226-228, 232, 


Ohio, state: 184. 




240-242, 246, 260, 264, 267, 268, 


Onawa Bend: 264. 




273, 277, 284, 292, 294; duties and 


Orchestras: 157. 




responsibilities, 78-99; early, in- 


Osage River: 265. 




116; oldest of upper Mississippi, 


Osceola, Wis.: 29, 270, 282. 




117. 


Oshkosh, Wis.: 196, 199, 202, 204. 


Pirn, John S. : clerk, 272. 


Otter: steamboat, ' 290. 




Pine Bend: 245. 


Oxford Univ.: 196, 201. 




Pine Ridge, S. Dak.: 216. 


Owen, Capt. — : 267. 




Pine trees and wood: 22, 34, 74, 232. 


Owens, Capt. — : 279. 




Pioneers: 185, 188. 
Pitch: 147. 


Panama, Isthmus of: 79. 




Pittsburg, Pa.: 30, 185, 250, 259, 


Pantry boy: 52, 115. 




262, 275, 276, 278, 280-282, 286- 


Paris, France: 201. 




289, 291, 293. 


Parker, — : 115, ri6. 




Pittsburg: steamboat, 249. 


Parker, Capt. — : 269, 281. 




Planters: 138. 


Parker, Capt. J. W.: 262, 271. 




Point Douglass: 49, 171, 237, 268, 


Parker, Capt. N. W.: 284. 




273, 291. 


Parker, Capt. W. N.: 265. 




Pokagon: Indian chief, 19. 


Parkersburg, Va.: 264. 




Polar Star: steamboat, 239. 


Parkman, Francis: La Salle 


and 


Pontoosuc, III.: 290, 296. 


Disc, of Gt. JVest, cited, 113. 




Poplar River: 262. 


Parthenia: steamboat, 238. 




Population: 19, 188. 


Paul Jones: steamboat, 238. 




Pork: 29, 30, 241. 


Pearman, — : clerk, 258. 




Portage, Wis.: 197, 279, 288. 


Pekin, III.: 285. 




Portages: 113. 



INDEX 



319 



Porter, Com. — : 50. 

Post Boy: name for steamboat, 230. 

Potatoes: 56, 169. 

Potosi, Wis.: 268, 282, 290. 

Prairie Belle: steamboat, 46. 

Prairie du Chien, Wis.: 56, 69, 112- 
114, 144, 147, 151, 164, 167-169, 
171, 172, 202, 248, 261, 275, 280, 
284. 

Prairie Grove: battle of, 211. 

Prairies: 21, 27, 28, 107, 188, 209- 
211. 

Preachers: 190, 193. 

Pre-Emption: steamboat, 184. 

Presbyterians: 46. 

Prescott, Wis.: 19, 20, 21, 22, 27-29, 
34. 49) 55> 60, 80, 85, 95, 106-108, 
114, 140, 148, 152, 171, 179, 191, 
i93> 195. 199. 201, 215, 223, 225, 
245, 268, 273, 282; typical river 
town, 29 ; transfer and shipping 
point, 29, 30. 

Prescott Island: 223. 

Prices and values: 59, 62, 64, 65, 
80, 124, 139, 144, 155, 161-164, 
167-169, 171, 172, 181, 184, 216, 
219, 222, 223, 225, 226, 234, 262, 
265, 267, 269, 271, 272, 274, 275, 
280, 282, 289-291. 

Pringle: steamboat, 239. 

Printers: 35, 95, 181, 182. 

Prize fights: 115, 116. 

Profits: 170-172. 

Providence, Mo.: 285. 

Provisions: 29, 30, 127, 128, 149, 
163, 185. 

Puitt's Island: 223, 277. 

Pumps: 36. 

QuiNCY, III.: 188, 252, 280, 285, 289, 
Quincy: steamboat, 249. 
Quicksand: 76. 

Raccoons: 22. 

Radehaugh, George: engineer, 283. 

Rafts: 26, 114, 122, 185, 221, 249, 

250; men, 30, 106, 113, 114. See 

also Ships. 



Railroads: 56, 83, 105, 162, 164, 167, 
173, 221, 234, 240, 241, 248, 292; 
kill traffic on rivers, 18. Various 
lines — Dunleith, 172; Galena & 
Western Union, 164; Illinois Cen- 
tral, 164; Milwaukee & Mississip- 
pi, 164; Prairie du Chien, 172. 

Rapids: 186, 225, 231, 257, 261, 264, 
269, 275, 279, 301. 

Rawlins, Capt. John: 272, 283. 

Red River of the North: 250, 258, 
263, 269. 

Red Wing, Minn.: 19-21, 167-169, 
246, 270. 

Red Wing: Sioux chief, 19-22. 

Reed's Landing, Minn.: 29, 246. 

Reefs, 36, 40, 92-94, 96, 99, 100, 
109, 200. See also Sand bars. 

Reilly (Riley), Capt. Robert A.: 
259, 280, 281, 294. 

Relief: steamboat, 184. 

Reno, Capt. — : 288. 

Resin: 148. 

Reynolds, Joseph: 248, 249. 

Rhodes, Capt. J. B.: 278. 

Rhodes, Capt. J. H.: 292. 

Rhodes, Capt. Thomas B. : 280, 290. 

Rice: 30; wild, 22. 

Rice, Dan: circus man, 122. 

Richardson, — : deserts ship to join 
army, 215. 

Riley, Capt. Robert A. See Reilly. 

Rissue, Capt. — : 277. 

River Falls, Wis. : 201, 204, 205, 240. 

Rivers: 13, 19; improvements on, 

Riviere de la Conception: appella- 
tion of Mississippi, 301. 

Riviere St. Louis: appellation of 
Mississippi, 301. 

Robbins, R. M.: clerk, 266. 

Robert E. Lee: steamboat, 143. 

Robert, Capt. Louis: 272, 276, 290. 

Robert, Capt. Nelson: 290. 

Robinson, Capt. John: 264. 

Rock Island, 111.: 18, 19, 35, 85, 93, 
122, 130, 148, 152, 164, 168, 184, 



320 



INDEX 



i88, 261, 263, 266, 272, 275, 287; 

rapids, 264. See also Bridges. 
Rogers, — : 260. 
Rogers, Capt. — : 286. 
Rolling Stone, Minn.: 95, 182, 183. 
Rosin: 34. 

Rounds, Capt. — : 287. 
Roustabouts. See Deck hands. 
Rowe, Capt. — : 273. 
Rowley, Capt. — : 263. 
Ruley, Russel: mate, 35, 267, 277. 
Rusk, Jeremiah (gov. of Wis.): 83. 
Russell, Capt. Joseph, U. S. A.: 187. 
Ryan, Capt. — : 289. 

St. Albert's Island: 282. 

St. Anthony, Minn.: 96, 169, 272, 

See also Minneapolis (with which 

it is incorporated). 
St. Anthony Falls, Minn.: 99, 112, 

155, 223, 265, 266, 268, 272, 278, 

283. 
St. Croix, Minn.: 285; Falls, 29, 80, 

104, 106, 191, 199, 259, 263, 264, 

269, 273, 282, 285; Lake, 19, 105, 

148, 191, 192, 195, 267; River, 19, 
20, 29, 113, 191, 199, 200, 202, 
259, 265, 266, 270, 273, 284, 293 ; 
valley, 284, 287; steamboat, 280, 
290. 

St. Genevieve, Mo.: 188. 

St. Joseph, Mich.: 16, 187, 264; 
river (St. Joe), 15, 17, 18, 186, 
199. 

St. Louis, Mo.: 19, 30, 43, 60, 64, 
66, 70, 79, 83-85, 103, 106, 112, 
114, 115, 117, n8, 124, 132, 136, 
143, 158, 172, 17s, 186, 188, 207, 
221, 230, 231, 233, 234, 237, 241, 
247, 250-252, 257-294, 301; table 
of distances from, 296-298. 

St. Paul, Minn.: 18, 22, 35, 55, 56, 
60, 62, 66, 71, 78, 79, 83-85, 93, 
96, 99, 103, 106, 115, 117, 122, 
127, 129, 132, 136, 140, 144, 147, 

149, 151, 157, 162, 164, 167, i6«, 
171, 172, 180, 182, 206, 207, 222, 
223, 225, 228, 230-232, 234, 240- 



242, 248, 251, 253, 257-294, 301; 

opening of navigation at (1844- 

62), 295. 
St. Paul: name for steamboats, 230, 

249. 
St. Peters, Minn.: 257-260, 262, 266, 

268, 270, 271, 274-276, 278-281, 

284-289, 291, 292. 
Salem, Mass.: 15. 
Saloons: 29. See also Intoxication; 

and Liquors. 
Saltmarsh, Capt. — : 275. 
Sam Cloon: steamboat, 239. 
Sand bars: 74-77, 112, 163, 169, 170, 

186, 223, 224, 228, 247, 249, 273 ; 

danger of, 41. See also Reefs. 
Sargent, Capt. — : 291. 
Sargent, G. L. : engineer, 294. 
Sauk Rapids: 266, 272, 283. 
Savanna, 111.: 118. 
Schaser: family in Prescott, 22. 
Schools: 84, 184. 
Scotchman: 84, 115. 
Scott, Capt. — : 271, 284. 
Scott, G. W. : engineer, 294. 
Search-lights: 89, 245, 249, 250. 
Senator: steamboat, 184, 292. 
Sencerbox, Capt. — : 267. 
Settlers: 60, 174, 179, 185, 222. 
Shaw Botanical Garden: in St. 

Louis, 250. 
Shellcross, Capt. John: 278, 291. 
Shenandoah: steamboat, 239. 
Sherman, Tecumseh W. : 206, 212, 

216, 217, 268. 
Ships and water craft: shipyards 

and shipbuilding, 15, 161, 230; 

captains (masters), 14, 35, 46, 47, 

52, 71-77; crews, 48, 64, 69, 70; 

watches on, 56, 57; caste on, 69, 

70; shipping methods, 29, 30, 33; 

cargoes carried by, 30 {see also 

Freight) ; competition in shipping, 

33; "shipping up" defined, 40. 

Various kinds of water craft: 

Arks, 185. Barges, 149, 150, 171, 

246, 248, 289. Bateaux, 112. 

Broadhorns, 185. Canal-boats, 



INDEX 



32] 



185, 239. Canoes, 22-27, 1^2, 301. 
Circus-boat, 122. Dugouts, 20, 23. 
Flatboats, 62, 239. Gunboats, 50. 
Keel boats, 15, 185-187. Life- 
boats, 123, 231. Lumber hooker, 
i6. Mackinac boats, 112. Pack- 
ets {see beloiv Steamboats). Sail- 
ing, 117. Scows, 62, 63, 185. 
Steamboats — 13-18, 24, 33, 117; 
stern-wheelers, 18, 33, 39, 40, 84, 
85, 101-103, iS5> 163, 170, 191, 
194, 199, 206, 207, 258-294; side- 
wheelers, i8, 33, 39-42, 85, 102, 
152. 155, 199. 250. 257-294; night 
landings, 33, 34; Merrick enters 
service of, 35; close of navigation 
for, 35; machinery on, 35, 36; de- 
scribed, 35, 36, 43, 44, 74-76; du- 
ties of engineers on, 35-37; en- 
gine-room, 38-45, 73, 79; rate of 
speed, 43; racing, 43-45, 143-151; 
become fewer on Mississippi, 56, 
222; wooding up, 59, 62, 63; offi- 
cial etiquette on, 62; captain must 
know thoroughly, 71, 73, 74; cap- 
tains own interest in, 72 ; cabins, 
72; how handled in accidents, 74- 
77; sparring off, 74-76; hogging, 
75 ; spars, 74-76 ; how hauled over 
bars, 76, 77; patrol Mississippi, 
79; forced out by railroads, 83; 
lights covered at night, 90; art 
of steering, 100-105; early, 111, 
112, 187, 257; list of, on upper 
Mississippi (before 1863), 257- 
294; early pilots on, 111-116; size, 
117, 163, 164, 169, 199, 200, 206, 
250, 257-294; bars (abolished) 
and beverages on, 124, 139-137; 
cost, 124 {see also Prices) ; kitch- 
en, 126; menus on, 126-131; 
"grub-pile," 129; gambling on, 
138-142; music and art on, 152- 
160; bonanzas, 161-173; few in- 
sured, 162; passenger accommoda- 
tions, 167, 171; passenger rates, 
167-169; pioneer steamboatmen, 
184-189; wrecks and accidents. 



192-195, 229-239, 257-293; deser- 
tions from, 215 ; logs towed by, 
221 ; U. S. Govt, procures, 227, 
228; dredges worked by, 228; 
many with same name, 229, 230; 
U. S. inspection of, 232; improve- 
ments on, 245-247, 249, 250; 
where built, 257-293. Steamship 
lines (some same company under 
various names) — Alton, 157, 231, 
239; Anchor, 250; Davidson, 267, 
269, 277, 281, 283, 293; Diamond 
Jo, 136, 151, 167, 240, 245, 246, 
248, 249; Dubuque & St. Paul 
Packet Co., 269; Galena, Du- 
buque, Dunleith & St. Paul Packet 
Co. (Galena and Minn. Packet 
Co.), 30, 261, 265, 268, 270-272 
{see also beloiv Minn. Packet 
Co.); Keokuk Packet Co., 277; 
Minnesota Packet Co., 30, 41, 84, 
116, 129, 148, 151, 170, 172, 180, 
216, 258, 260, 263, 271, 272, 277, 

278, 280, 282-284, 287, 288, 291, 
292; N. Y. Steamship Co., 83; 
Northern Line, 132, 260-262, 264- 
266, 269, 270, 273, 281, 282, 285, 
290, 292 ; Northwestern Line, 124, 

279, 280, 285, 286; St. Louis & 
St. Paul Packet Co. 180, 263, 264, 
266, 269; St. Louis Line, 148. 
Towboats, 122. Submarine boats, 
238. "Wild" boats, 30. Woodboats, 
63, 239. Yawls, 74, 207, 222. 

Shousetown, Pa.: 257, 260, 262, 280, 

282, 286, 288. 
Shovelin, Con: second mate, 70. 
Sidney: steamboat, 249. 
Sire, Capt. Joseph: 284. 
Slaves and slavery: 47, 50, 64, 65, 

164. See also Negroes. 
Sloughs: 21, 22, 227, 248, 301. 
Smelter: steamboat, 184. 
Smith: family in Prescott, 22. 
Smith, Mr. — : owns woody ard, 60. 
Smith, Capt. — : 266, 292. 
Smith, Capt. J. C: 280. 
Smith, Capt. J. F.: 266. 



322 



INDEX 



Smith, Jerome: pilot, ii6. 




Thurston, Capt. — : 259. 


Smith, Capt. John: 290. 




Tibbies, Henry: pilot, 116. 


Smith, Capt. Orren: 149, 150, 


261, 


Tiger: steamboat, 284. 


278, 281, 282, 288, 294. 




Time and Tide: steamboat, 278. 


Smoiier, Capt. — : 265. 




Tishomingo: steamboat, 172. 


Soap: 30. 




Tools: 20, 35, 36. 


Soldiers: 191, 222, 241, 261. 




Torches: 34. 


South Bend, Mich.: 15, 187. 




Trader, Boney (Napoleon Bona- 


Speer, S.: 289. 




parte) : gambler, 139. 


Spencer, Capt. R. M.: 261, 269, 


284, 


Transportation. See Railroads; 


288. 




and Ships. 


Stackhouse & Nelson: 289. 




Traverse, Lake: 269. 


Standing Bear, Henry (Sioux): 


216, 


Traverse des Sioux, Dakota: 219, 


219, 220. 




259, 265. 


Stanton, Frederick K. : clerk, 273. 


Treaties: Indian, 206, 219, 284, 287. 


Starnes, Capt. — : 280. 




Trees: 22, 26, 34, 74, 232. 


Statistics: of casualties to steam- 


Trempealeau, Wis.: 69, 95; Land- 


boats, 229, 259. 




ing, 301 ; Mountain, 301. 


Steamboats. See Ships. 




Tripp, Harry: pilot, 80, 116, 268. 


Stephens, John: clerk, 270. 




Trout: 202, 205. 


Stephenson, Capt. Charles L. : 


273, 


Troxell, — : engineer, 292. 


292. 




Troy, Capt. — : 267. 


Stewards (on steamboats) : 35, 


126- 


Trudell, — : mate, 123. 


129, 163, 242. 




Trudell Slough: 21, 25. 


Stewart, — : clerk, 274. 




Truett, Capt. — : 286. 


Stillwater, Minn.: 29, 106-109, 


"5, 


Turkey River: 249. 


140, 164, 167, 168, 179, 191, 


192, 


Turner, Capt. — : 286. 


221, 259. 




Tuttle, Calvin: millwright, 285. 


Stone, Capt. — : 285. 




Twain, Mark (S. C. Clemens) : Life 


Storms: 107-110, 122, 123, 191, 


192, 


on Loiccr Miss., cited, 83, 84, 87, 


231, 234, 249. 




130, 188. 


Stran, Capt. H. B.: 288. 






Strother, Capt. — : 284. 




Unions: 64. 


Sturgeons, fish: 19. 




United States: 20, 206, 219; federal 


Sugar: in cargo, 30. 




officers, 60; inspects steamboats, 


Superior, Lake: 300. 




84, 231, 232; danger to govt, 208; 


Sutler: steamboat, 184. 




charters vessel, 216; war dept, 


Swamp, wild rice: 22. 




227. 
Upper Bonhomme Island: 290. 


Talliaferro, Laurence: Indian 




agent, 187. 




Van Houten, Capt. — : 258. 


Talliaferro, Maj. — , U. S. A.: 


287. 


Vermillion Slough: 21. 


Telegraph: name for steamboat 


230. 


Vermont, state: 205. 


Tennessee River: 250. 




Vickers, Capt. — : 288. 


Thomas, Chute: 274. 




Vicksburg, Miss.: 212, 273, 290. 


Thompson's Bank Note Detector 


179. 


Victoria, Queen: 144, 147. 


Throckmorton, Capt. Joseph: 


261, 


Victory, Wis.: 123, 247. 


262, 263, 271, 279, 286, 289, 


293- 


Virginia, state: 141. 



INDEX 



323 



Virginia: steamboat, 112, 187, 257. 
Vorhies, Capt. — : 277. 
Voyageurs: 113, 115, 301. 

Wabasha: 247, 261; Prairie, 182. 

Wabash River: 155. 

Wacouta, Minn.: 29, 149, 234, 269, 

287. 
Wages: 56, 103, 122, 126, 137, 157, 

158, 163, 199, 201, 215, 224, 241, 

251. 
Wah-pa-sha: Dakota chief, 300, 302, 

303- 

Waiters: on boats, 157. 

Wall, Capt. Nick: 281, 285. 

Ward, Frank: clerk, 271. 

Ward, Capt. James: 156, 262, 263, 
267, 275, 286, 289, 290, 293. 

War Eagle: steamboat, 76, 84, 184, 
230, 270. 

Warehouses: 19, 29, 30, 33, 182, i88. 

Warrior: name for steamboats, 230. 

Wars: Civil (Secession), 22, 50, 51, 
78, 80, 117, 174, 190, 196, 197, 203, 
206-211, 215, 2i6, 222, 231; In- 
dian, 213, 216; Mexican, 212. 

Washington, D. C: 51, 83, 208, 226, 
287, 292. 

Washington, Mo.: 260. 

Wa-ze-co-to: Dakota Indian, 303. 

Webb, Capt, N. F.: 271, 284, 292. 

Wells's Landing: 123. 

Wellsville, O.: 268. 

West, Edward (Ed., Ned) A.: pi- 
lot, 78, 103, 106, 116, 148, 277. 

West Brownsville, Pa.: 258, 278. 

West Elizabeth, Pa.: 267, 272, 287. 

West Newton: steamboat, 149, 184. 

West Newton Chute: 293. 

Weston Island: 257. 

West Point Mil. Acad.: 79, 209, 224, 
226. 

Whales and whalers: 15, 16. 

Wheat: 30, 56, 152, 169, 171, 246, 
248, 249. 

Wheeling, Va. {noiv W. Va.) : 270, 
271, 278, 284, 289. 



Whipple: family in Prescott, 22. 
Whiskey: 29, 30, 135, 136. 
"Whiskey Jim;" appellation of 

deck hand, 215. 
White, Capt. — : 188.* 
White, Hugh: pilot, n6. 
White, William: pilot, 116, 293. 
White Cloud: steamboat, 233. 
Whitten, Capt. David: 144, 147, 275. 
Wilcox, Gen. O. B.: 141, 204. 
Wilderness: battle of, 215. 
Williams, Rufus: pilot, 116. 
Willow River: 109. 
Wilson, Billy, mate: 48, 66-70, 268, 

303- 
Winnebago, Wis.: 202; Lake, 197, 

266. 
Winona: Indian maiden, 302, 303. 
Winona, Minn.: 29, 69, 168, 183, 

259, 277, 291, 300, 302. 
Wisconsin: River, 112, 199, 202, 

279, 288; territory and state, 19, 

20, 25, 35, 83, 113, 164, 175, 190, 

195, 203, 219, 300. 
Wise, Gen. — : 203. 
Wolf River: 197. 
Wolves: 22, 27. 
Wood and woodyards: 57, S9-63i 69, 

115, 143, 163, 179. 
Wood Lake: 202. 
Woodburn, Capt. — : 286. 
Woodruff, Capt. — : 259. 
Woods, John: 188. 
Worden, Capt. Jones: 149, 268, 277. 
Worsham, — : clerk, 257. 
Wrecks: 78, 93, 124, 192-195, 227. 
Wright, — : engineer, 292. 

Yale University: 204. 
Yankees: 70, 114, 131, 196, 211. 
Young, Capt. Augustus R.: 266, 267. 
Young, Jesse B. : mate, 267. 
Young, Josiah: engineer, 267. 
Young, Leonard: engineer, 267. 
Young Men's Christian Association: 
216. 

Zanesville, O.: 276. 



THF. TOUCH PKESS 
OEDAH RAJflDS, IOWA 



NOV 25 1903 






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